<p>I think the difference comes in the promise to meet 100% of demonstrated need. While admissions was/is need blind, the goal was to get to 100% demonstrated need for ALL students (internationals included). This is not yet the case and for this year at least (and I imagine next for sure) it wasn’t.</p>
<p>Based on the insanity of admissions, I don’t think anyone went into this year thinking that anything was going to be easier. Quite the opposite in fact. Then the economy implosion and there’s all this talk about application numbers being down. But the point remain that there are somewhere between 1400-1600 people guaranteed a rejection letter. That’s a lot of people when you’re only talking about starting with 6500 (give or take).</p>
<p>What I took from the article was this: Our application pool continues to be very strong, in fact, it gets stronger every year and ED was especially so. (Of course, this begs the question of just what we are requiring from High School studies and if the gap between those who have opportunity vs those that don’t create an ever-widening gap in admissions). Anyway, we accepted nearly half the class from ED because they were a strong class and we werent REALLY sure how the economy was going to affect overall applications; we took while the taking was good. However, now we are making the class bigger and that will also be reflected in admission decisions so we are guaranteed the yield we need (which I imagine their competition is the ivy’s and one or two other nescac). Any disadvantage to RD students by so many students being accepted ED is somewhat moot. Basically, its all there to say… maybe you’ll get in and maybe you won’t. I think we knew that around here before I ever started reading! :)</p>