princeton vs. yale

PtonGrad2000
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:55:31 +0000

Just as fscottie says, there is a direct connection between total applications and the move from early decision to either early action or single choice early action. When Brown and Yale switched to SCEA their applications soared. Here is another article where this is discussed.

From the Yale Daily News regarding the 55% increase in SCEA applications:

“With 4,046 early applications, that means there are roughly 15,500 regular applications, about a 2.5 percent increase in regular applications from last year. Early applications, on the other hand, rose 55 percent this year, accounting for much of the rise in total applications. Admissions officials and high school college counselors have attributed drastic increases in early applications to decisions by some universities – including Yale – to change from binding Early Decision programs to nonbinding single-choice Early Action programs.”

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=24869

The rise in applications at Brown was even greater than that at Yale. Harvard experienced a similar significant increase (in the 20% range) when they (for one year, I believe) allowed students applying early decision to other schools to apply early action to Harvard.

You might be interested to know that Yale moved from early action to early decision following Princeton’s lead many years ago. It was only more recently that Levin decided to switch back to early action with its predictable significant increase in applications. At the time Princeton made the change it was for the express purpose of cutting down on the number of common applications across all selective schools so as to make students think more deeply about their reasons for applying to any one school. Yale was convinced of the arguments and followed Princeton’s lead. The effect at that time was just as anticipated. Instead of applying early to multiple schools, students applied to just one or at least fewer and the total number of applications declined slightly. Since that time, the thinking at Yale has clearly changed, with a desire for more applications and the decision to switch back to early action.