<p>I posted while you were posting, but I see!</p>
<p>I certainly don’t approve of collecting skins for the sake of bragging, but I see nothing wrong with collecting acceptances to compare finaid offers.</p>
<p>I also don’t see where SCEA causes “seat saving” that makes someone “miss part of the show”. Wait lists existed back when there was only RD and would continue to exist if EA/ED were abolished tomorrow. And whether admitted under EA, SCEA, or RD, an applicant has until the same date (usually May 1st) to let go of the saved seats. And nobody misses part of the show. The waitlist stuff gets done before school starts. EA/ED has problems, but wait lists isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>But on the larger issue I kind of agree with Celebrian. I’d be happy if they dumped the whole EA/ED enterprise. It’s a lot for trouble for a limited benefit. A stress-free Christmas for a few lucky kids is a very limited benefit. RD works just fine. Let’s put everyone on the same footing and go forward.</p>
<p>Ah Coureur, you forget that ED does not exist for the sake of ginving a few lucky kids a stress-free Christmas. It’s to give some LACs a stress-free admission season. 
Pomona is railing against EA, but does not wish to abandon ED, as far as I can make out.</p>
<p>I agree with you, coureur, that the Pomona dean was being a bit…well, hyperbolic, maybe? But I disagree about early apps. It’s not merely a stress-free Christmas, but a stress-free (in our case) over 3 1/2 months til April 1, or 4 1/2 til May 1, and WELL worth it - almost priceless! In fact, I would have been happy to know even earlier! In our area, you apply to high school in Oct. and can find out in November where you will be going. Why not just have rolling admissions for college? Then everyone can just decide for themselves when they want to apply, and will find out as soon as they are accepted or rejected.</p>
<p>(To answer my own question, colleges would prefer to compare a larger number of students. So they could STILL start notifying in December, but after that point, it could be rolling notification).</p>
<p>Humm, I am not sure that the dean of admissions deserves that much criticism, or deserves to be seen as a poster child for the innumeracy prevalent in American academia. Quite to the contrary, I think that Mr. Poch understand the number games better than any of us. Also, it may be good to remember that Pomona receives about 300 ED application but will admit about 900 students. While 130 ED admitted students make the final enrollment of 400, the school will go through about 3600 regular applications. For good measures, we should remember that, a few years ago, Harvard received more than 7,000 Early applications for their 1600 freshmen spots. Early admissions do not seem to be that much of a panacea. </p>
<p>No matter how much we criticize ED, the reality is that it provides a bonus for both the school and a number of students. It is obvious that if ED did not help the schools, they would NOT offer it. It is also undeniable that the early decisions do HELP a great number of students, even if they may fall outside the range of the middle-income families. The notion that colleges’ admissions should be fair for everyone is neither supportable nor realistic. That is why it is still called a selection process. </p>
<p>I also believe that the quotation of the Dean of Dartmouth -posted by Sybbie a few days ago- goes a long way to show the other side of the coin.</p>
<p>It’s understandable that the Pamona’s, schools that are usually back up choices for students who prefer the ivies, do not like EA. This all speaks to the thread discussing the underlying messege on most threads on this board. Most kids will choose an ivy or near ivy if given the option. If this is trophy hunting we’re never going to stop it. </p>
<p>SCEA just seems silly to me, a stupid compromise. ED makes sense except for when you read on this board about how many kids don’t take the commitment seriously. But no amount of tinkering with them will stop what many people see as trophy hunting and others just see as consumers trying to get their best deal. More power to any kid that can complete 20 apps!</p>
<p>As I posted several days ago, if I ran a school, I’d do the ED thing, too. I’d want to lock up qualified, higher-paying customers (and the needed footbacll quarterback, and English horn player) as soon as I could. I might make them pay more for the privilege, but that’s another issue. I have problems with the institutional missions, but no particular problem with this way of carrying it out. ED was not put in to benefit students or their families, but to serve the institution’s needs. (Pomona’s fear is that they might not get the football quarterback if he can apply SCEA to Yale instead.)</p>
<p>I believe that we can all agree that regardless of its benefits, EA (SC or not) can be abused. It also can be misconstrued.</p>
<p>Case #1: Applicant who truly wants to attend the institution applied but is deferred. That applicant applied EA b/c (s)he wanted to demonstrate his/her desire to attend that particular school. From the school’s viewpoint, that student could decide to attend another school because it’s not binding. From the student’s perspective, his/her message didn’t go through.</p>
<p>Case #2: Applicant applies SCEA to a top Ivy and is accepted. (S)he decides to apply to all the other Ivies RD b/c that SCEA school may not be the one (s)he wants to attend. Meanwhile, other kids who truly want to attend that school and who do qualify for admission are deferred to RD.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the question is how to adjust the admissions process so that everyone’s needs are best met. That may be the $64,000 question, and I’m glad that I don’t have to be the one to solve it.</p>
<p>Why should admission to colleges be different than any other consumer product? Most of life’s most desirable things are available in limited quantities. Who gets them? People willing to pay the most, work the hardest, stand in line the longest, think through the best strategy and so on.</p>
<p>As someone whose son made use of SCEA last year – then chose an RD school instead, I can say it had nothing to do with trophy hunting and I can’t believe there are a lot of students out there who go through all that expense and trouble for bragging rights. Who in their right mind would do that? </p>
<p>Although having a school in the bag early was a great relief for us, (and he almost did go to his SCEA school) I would much rather they do away with all ED and EA programs, which really function for the benefit of the university rather than the student. The whole senior year becomes about nothing but applying to and choosing a college. ED is great for universities – they lock in certain students, especially paying ones, and they get a great looking yield. But I think my son was more typical than not: he just wasn’t ready to engage the whole process in the Spring of junior year when we went to look at colleges, but we had to look then because of the logisitics of visiting the East Coast from the West. He did not apply ED anywhere because he really wasn’t sure of what he wanted, which was the same reason he kept applying even after he got in EA. Some of his friends who applied and got into ED schools were not sure they’d made the right pick by April, when they saw other people visiting and re-considering their options.</p>
<p>I can sympathize with most of these comments. S applied EA to UChicago & Caltech & got into both before Christmas. He had a terrible time choosing between the two (thought he would be studying physics). I was so embarassed that he hadn’t made a decision by early Feb. that we had a major row over it-- it’s so tacky, rude, and inconsiderate to be taking up 2 spots at such great schools–I was furious! I intend to caution S2 not to apply ED/EA/E whatever unless he is really, REALLY certain.</p>
<p>* I was so embarassed that he hadn’t made a decision by early Feb. that we had a major row over it. - it’s so tacky, rude, and inconsiderate to be taking up 2 spots at such great schools *</p>
<p>I don’t think either Caltech or Chicago expected students to make up their minds by February! </p>
<p>For one thing, Chicago doesn’t provide any financial aid or merit scholarship information to EA admits until after they’ve reviewed the entire RD pool in March. Caltech provides some financial information in January, but there are some EA admitted students who will not hear about Caltech merit scholarship awards until March.</p>
<p>For another thing, the admitted student preview weekends for Caltech and Chicago are not held until April. Chicago will arrange overnight visits on an individual basis before then, but Caltech won’t even do that.</p>
<p>Chicago and Caltech are indeed both great schools, and both of them are legendary for the amount of work they require of their students. It seems quite reasonable to me that a student considering either one or both weigh the choice very carefully, rather than rushing into an ill-considered decision.</p>
<p>I believe that is a big part of the reason WHY those schools choose to go with EA rather than ED. They don’t want to end up with a bunch of students who prematurely rushed to judgment, prematurely committed themselves, and regret it later.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I still think it’s tacky, rude and inconsiderate to the schools and the other applicants to hold open a spot until April. </p>
<p>You can “think” or “believe” what you want, but you really don’t know why those schools operate the way they do. Since they are both terribly demanding, they may choose early action simply because they think ED would limit the applicant pool too much. Who knows? </p>
<p>BTW, after the decision in favor of Caltech, UCh was insistent on knowing where S went. It turns out that UCh and Caltech have an incredibly high proportion of their accepted applicants who apply & are accepted to both. It is probably a self-selection thing. </p>
<p>If the decision had turned on need based FA awards, of course it would have made sense to wait. But since neither sponsor NMS awards for finalists it didn’t make much sense to wait to see about other possible merit aid. In my son’s class of 240 at Caltech, there are 51 NMS, including him. He wasn’t going to win one of the 4 full boat scholarships given to freshmen, that was clear.</p>
<p>Frankly Wyogal, if the school’s your son applied to wanted to know this month they should be ED. If an 18 year old needs a couple of extra months to make a decision, to me, it’s understandable. Applying EA gave him the freedom to wait until April.</p>
<p>wyogal:</p>
<p>concur with the others. The school’s make the rules, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking until the deadline to make a decision. This allows campus visits, calls to prospective department chairs, finaid comparisons, and the like. Of course, if a kid has made a firm decision, it would be a nice thing to do to withdraw from the other school.</p>
<p>I also agree with I-Dad: RD/EA can be a fantastic opportunity for those kids who have a STRONG #1 choice where they want to go, and the parents are willing to gamble on the FinAid (RD). Plus, RD is the ONLY tip factor for a non-hooked kid, i.e., BWRK (are those the correct initials?). </p>
<p>On the other hand, I beleive SCEA is really for the pc-crowd – it enables Yale and Stanford to silence some critics about the negatives of RD, and to appear more concerned about the kids who don’t have the resources to apply early. But, as Mini points out, the number of Pell Grant kids at either school is minimal.</p>
<p>“But if all 25 or 50 selective schools went to SCEA at one time, and enforced the single part, wouldn’t that eliminate some of the scrambling?”</p>
<p>It might eliminate it but it might also be a conspiracy in restraint of trade.</p>
<p>* If the decision had turned on need based FA awards, of course it would have made sense to wait. But since neither sponsor NMS awards for finalists it didn’t make much sense to wait to see about other possible merit aid. In my son’s class of 240 at Caltech, there are 51 NMS, including him. He wasn’t going to win one of the 4 full boat scholarships given to freshmen, that was clear.*</p>
<p>Chicago DOES sponsor NMS awards. They also give a large number of significant merit scholarships–I think 30 of them are full tuition and several hundred are $9,500.</p>
<p>And Caltech awarded a lot more than 4 fullboat scholarships.</p>
<p>Caltech awarded 30 Axline merit scholarships to freshman last year. (Some of them were full tuition, the rest were full tuition, room & board. 6 were awarded to EA applicants in January. The others were awarded to both EA & RD applicants after all applications had been reviewed in March.) </p>
<p>They also awarded 25 Presidential scholarships (non-needbased full scholarships) to underrepresented minorities.</p>
<p>Given that their freshman class is only about 250 students, this is a pretty significant number.</p>
<p>It’s also interesting to note that Caltech hired a new admissions director last summer–he came from U of Chicago!</p>
<p>source for the Caltech info: <a href=“http://diversity.caltech.edu/dpg_reports/irvine06-04/Data.pdf[/url]”>http://diversity.caltech.edu/dpg_reports/irvine06-04/Data.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yes, U of Chicago does offer sponsored NMS scholarships, as well as large merit awards. That was one of the reason our son waited with his decision.</p>
<p>I don’t see why anyone should rush to judgment on an EA acceptance, since those who apply EA often have not settled on a choice, or they might have applied ED elsewhere. Colleges allow for a certain percentage not to accept their offer, just as they do in the RD round, and they set the number they will accept in the RD round based on similar estimates – independent of the number of EA acceptees who send their cards back in before the deadline. I do not see how replying to an EA offer by May 1, when they expect you to respond, in any way takes up anyone else’s slot or is inconsiderate.</p>
<p>Does anybody besides me see a problem with race based scholarships? It is one thing to give an edge in admission in order to achieve your educational goal of diversity and providing need based aid to those admitted but it is another to have merit based awards that also require a candidate to belong or not belong to some ethnic group. </p>
<p>This probably belongs in its own thread but I don’t want to get spammed to death. Cal Tech is hardly the only school that has merit based scholarships for particular races.</p>
<p>*It is one thing to give an edge in admission in order to achieve your educational goal of diversity and providing need based aid to those admitted but it is another to have merit based awards that also require a candidate to belong or not belong to some ethnic group. *</p>
<p>It is mostly this population that the school is trying to attract are those which are sometimes the least informed at the whole financial aid process. Minorities that make the admissions cut and get admitted to schools like Cal and Chicago are going to have a lot of choices in the college process. You would be suprised at how many minority families, thing that they have to actually come up with $40,000 per year for their child to attend college. Some colleges know that even with need based financial aid, just like their counterparts many minority families, often have a hard time coming up with the efc,and are very adverse to taking on extra debt to make up the EFC thus rendering the need based aid package useless. </p>
<p>It is not that they do not value education, but many minoitiy families are also of the mind set that you can get a "good’ education at any school and when given a choice tend to follow the money regardless of how “good” a college program is so it would not be unsusual for a minority student to turn down Cal of Chicago for a "free ride " some where else.</p>