ED is inherently unfair, even the people that think it’s fair are arguing from the point that it’s unfair and you can make it more fair by slow-playing the college with FA unhappiness and decide in April. The dean of Harvard at one point said that students should use their entire senior year to figure out what college is best for them, probably good advice.
ED only makes sense in the case that it was actually intended for, the college is your absolute first choice and you can afford regardless of the FA package. But now it’s used because more colleges are filling their classes ED and acceptance rates for ED can be 3 to 4 times RD, and even accounting for athletes, legacies, that’s a big difference. Most of the time it’s not their first choice but they don’t want to face less than 10% odds in RD.
Is there any research regarding how many applicants use ED primarily as a way to get into a school they are lukewarm about, then get accepted and attend, and are unhappy and maybe transfer? I suspect this is not common. Has this been the experience of anyone reading this thread?
My D19 has 3 clear choices, with 2 as reaches and one maybe a high match (if she uses ED). She’d be happy at any one of them. ED will probably help, fair or not. If she does not get in her ED1 or ED2, she will have a selection of matches and safeties, all fine schools. The disappointment risk is greater in not getting into one of her top choices, not being stuck in an ED school.
@theloniusmonk Why would Harvard President say that? Maybe he doesn’t like losing prospective applicants to ED. The reality is that Harvard only accepts 5% of applicants, there simply aren’t enough slots for all who are qualified and want to go. 9/10 quality applicants will be rejected. So I absolutely see why Harvard wants RD only, then they get to select from a much larger pool which only benefits Harvard. Doubt he has the prospective applicants best interests in mind. At least Stanford is significantly enlarging it’s undergraduate college to accommodate the rising demand.
No, Harvard wants (and has) single-choice early action, which enables Harvard to see who really wants to attend (because they applied SCEA), without binding them to do so. Of course, SCEA isn’t entirely fair either, because (with limited exceptions) you can’t apply anywhere else early, but it’s clearly better than ED.
The fairest would be RD-only, everywhere, but Harvard would only go there if all its peers did. Otherwise, it would be unilateral disarmament.
A few of the most selective colleges did try going without an early action period but reinstated it in 2011. I guess tehy felt they were missing out on competitive students.
"Harvard announced today that its non-binding early action admissions program will return this fall for the Class of 2016.
The program, which was eliminated in 2007 due to concerns that it posed a disadvantage to low-income applicants, will prohibit students from applying early to other schools, while being non-binding.
In a statement, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith said that offering an accelerated decision cycle for interested applicants will increase Harvard’s potential to attract top-caliber students.
“We looked carefully at trends in Harvard admissions these past years and saw that many highly talented students, including some of the best-prepared low-income and underrepresented minority students, were choosing programs with an early-action option, and therefore were missing out on the opportunity to consider Harvard,” he said.
In 2006, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Virginia made headlines by announcing within weeks of each other that early admissions practices at their schools would end.
Less than two hours after Harvard revealed its plan to resume early admissions this morning, Princeton also announced its plans to restore the early admissions program.
The University of Virginia had already rolled out an early action program this past November."
How does that prove your point? All it proves to me is that the schools felt they were missing out. Notice they originally dropped it because they thought it was unfair. They basically reinstated for competitive reasons only.
@DeepBlue86 Harvard would go there (RD) because they would have a clear advantage. They not only have an excellent academic reputation but they also have name branding and recognition. Others top universities who also have excellent academics aren’t willing to concede top students to Harvard.
Sure, Harvard would have a clear advantage over all or nearly all other schools if everyone went RD only. But Harvard also actually believes (and has said so repeatedly) that it would be the right thing for students overall only to have RD, because EA and ED inherently favor richer kids from better schools (as posters on this thread keep repeating). Bear in mind that by giving up EA, Harvard is prepared to lose a tool that gives them a lot of visibility on who’s going to accept their offers.
Fairness is why Harvard did away with early action, until they started losing too many students because some of their key competitors didn’t similarly disarm. Unless and until all Harvard’s peer schools go RD-only, absent other changes (see below) Harvard is likely to stick with SCEA as the the least unfair policy consistent with maintaining its competitive position, particularly because Yale, Princeton and Stanford all have it and they’re the competitors Harvard’s most concerned about. Right now, there’s an equilibrium.
The bigger concern, frankly, is top-15 schools that disturb the equilibrium by admitting increasing proportions of their classes ED, a trend underway for some time. They won’t admit it, but last year, in a major escalation, UChicago almost certainly admitted 2/3-3/4 of the class of 2021 ED1 or ED2. If many schools like Penn, Columbia and Duke start doing that, even though they’re feared less as competitors, at some point HYPS will feel some pressure to consider going ED.
The reality is that most schools need some percentage of full pay kids to be able to afford financial aid and in some cases merit for other kids. It’s a precarious budget for many schools. ED is helpful in managing that budget which then provides benefits for mid and low income applicants. It’s not perfect, but it serves a purpose. And for full pay families, they are certainly paying a premium to insure that the school’s operating budget is funded.
There’s a lot of unfairness in the process. The biggest is that it is not uniform between schools so strategizing options becomes a necessary evil
But that will be no advantage to do ED with their yields already in the 80’s (at least for Harvard/Stanford).
If Harvard's president is worried about the fairness for those who need FA, why not address that by increasing FA (seems that this would be a very direct method) which shouldn't be too hard for a university with an endowment like Harvard's.
and, they still choose to do SCEA while other schools (like MIT a couple of miles down the road) stick to there EA without restrictions.
and make no mistake, Harvard is interested in Harvard, not being magnanimous to applicants, and that is what they should do if they want to keep there place a top the heap.
I’m not bashing Harvard, but I just point out why things happen the way they do and its NOT due to some sort of altruistic based admission policies. Everyone university is interested in getting the best cohort possible and they use any and all means available to do so.
BTW, Princeton and Yale are following Harvard’s lead (wrt SCEA) because they don’t want to be seen as a step below the Harvard/Stanford duopoly. They are the two schools that may really have to consider ED in the future.
ED is the ultimate way of demonstrating interest. True, it does increase yield dramatically when a large percent is accepted ED, but there also may be a correlation between “student happiness” rankings with those schools, like Vanderbilt and Rice and Northwestern who admit a large portion of their freshman class ED.
Those kids know what they want and both the student and the school can benefit.
Many competitive kids apply to all top twenty schools without regard to the mission, vibe, or fit of the school.
Schools respect and value the commitment of their ED applicants.
Just another aspect of a very complex process.
@CU123 There is no way on earth Yale or Princeton will ever be doing ED. this would signal that they are not on par with Harvard or Stanford. Being able to command top yield rates without ED or any other such gimmicks is part of what sets HYPSM apart from the other schools.
Even Princeton, with a yield which is in the mid/high 60s, would never consider starting ED. Princeton loses most of the cross admits to HYSM, and they much rather keep it that way and still be seen as part of the HYPSM group, rather than doing ED, artificially inflating their yield and taking a hit in terms of prestige.
Harvard (together with a very small number of peer schools) has the best need-based financial aid out there. As you can learn from their website, more than half the students in Harvard College get financial aid (and those on aid pay an average of $12k/year), all can graduate without loans and more than 20% have zero expected family contribution. More here: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works
Harvard has finite resources - they spend enough on financial aid to be leaders while directing other sums to teaching, research, facilities, etc. By the way, you apparently share the common misperception that an endowment is a big pot of money that a university can use in any way it likes; Harvard’s is made up of 13,000 separate accounts, and about 70% is restricted (i.e., designated for specific purposes by the donors). More here: https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/endowment
Few top-tier schools offer unrestricted EA, and I believe those that do tend to do so because they have limited competition in their niches and aren’t worried about getting the kind of kids they want. Harvard is a lot more threatened by losing many kids to Princeton, Stanford and Yale than MIT is by losing a few kids to Harvard; MIT is going to get plenty of brilliant scientists/technologists, and prefers the ones who choose MIT entirely voluntarily.
Harvard is certainly interested in Harvard, but, guess what: Harvard actually thinks it’s in Harvard’s interest to attract the best kids from all strata of society, because “the best cohort possible” includes some kids who don’t/can’t apply early. If other schools weren’t locking up so many of the best kids through early admission, Harvard would happily give up SCEA, even though that would mean that Harvard would cede a lot of control over shaping its class, because it would have to admit everyone RD without any indication through SCEA as to who might actually enroll.
Harvard understands, as do many of the people on this thread, that early action is disproportionately used by kids at strong high schools, and that many of these kids come from comfortable-to-wealthy families. Harvard knows that if they admit too many kids SCEA, they give up their chance at a jump ball in the RD round for a lot of fantastic kids who simply don’t know how to play the admissions game and come from schools that aren’t clued in.
As you’ll see from their website, “the mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society” (https://college.harvard.edu/about/mission-and-vision). Harvard wants to be the place that educates kids who will become leaders in all kinds of areas in our society and around the world, because that’s how Harvard, in a virtuous circle, increases its power and reach, driving its ability to accumulate resources for teaching and research. That requires reaching a lot of kids who aren’t in a position to apply early.
You’re presenting incorrect opinions as facts here. Yale has a yield greater than 70%, Princeton’s is in the high 60s. They already get the vast majority of the kids they admit, and are only likely to change course if their yields drop. This seems unlikely for now - a major reason their yields are at these high levels is their generous financial aid (on par with Harvard’s) and their ongoing outreach to first-gen students, many of whom need financial aid. Furthermore, all the history of HYPS’ experiments with early admission would suggest that if Yale and Princeton went to ED, Harvard and Stanford would follow, sooner or later.
However, there is a common type of post this time of year, which is “should I apply ED to school X or school Y?”, where it looks like the poster is mainly interested in applying ED for tactical reasons, but is not clear on what school is his/her top choice. Another variation is, “should I apply ED to my lower choice reach school or ED/SCEA to my higher choice super-reach school?”.
@ucbalumnus Exactly. Around here, ED is almost always for tactical reasons. No doubt. And I know kids who went ED to Harvard and to Yale and transferred out after freshman year. That particular ED problem, though, is probably only for the top 20 schools or so. If someone applies to a school further down the USNW Report list, it probably IS because they love the school.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is but, it seems to me, that even a Harvard or Yale should look very closely at fit when accepting ED students. If a student has shown prior interest, has written strong essays saying WHY they want to go to school there, and have the grades to back it up, then he should be a stronger candidate than someone who didn’t do as good a job at proving why they want to attend said school. The schools should be able to figure out who will fit well with the culture and thrive at their school.
@homerdog Harvard and Yale do not have ED - they have REA. You couldn’t possibly “know kids who went ED to Harvard and to Yale and transferred out after freshman year” because neither Harvard or Yale has had ED.
Is there any research regarding how many applicants use ED primarily as a way to get into a school they are lukewarm about, then get accepted and attend, and are unhappy and maybe transfer? I suspect this is not common. Has this been the experience of anyone reading this thread?
My D19 has 3 clear choices, with 2 as reaches and one maybe a high match (if she uses ED). She’d be happy at any one of them. ED will probably help, fair or not. If she does not get in her ED1 or ED2, she will have a selection of matches and safeties, all fine schools. The disappointment risk is greater in not getting into one of her top choices, not being stuck in an ED school."
I doubt there’s research on a correlation between ED as a reason for transfer, as you say it’s probably not common for a link. As for your D19, if you’ve assessed the risks of ED vs non-ED including FA and think the benefit of admission into one of the three schools is worth it, then it might make sense. The thing is that if your daughter can get into a very selective school early, she may have been able to get into her other top choices as well, ED or RD. That’s the bind you’ve been put in because of colleges using ED to boost their profile.