<p>I’ll start by saying that I fundamentally agree with all of you that EA does not inherently favor the rich and privileged. I thought Harvard’s statement when it terminated its EA program was incoherent. My kids went to an urban public school with non-great counselors and many low-income students, and every student who might conceivably be a candidate for Harvard or Yale understood the EA/ED differences and opportunities.</p>
<p>But.</p>
<p>I think there’s no question that EA applicants are wealthier and more sophisticated, on average, than RD applicants, and EA applicants get admitted at a higher rate than RD applicants. It’s perfectly legitimate to say “So what?” to that, since the system does not inherently favor the wealthy, except to the extent that the wealthy are better at acquiring the credentials that super-selective colleges value. So a wealthier, more sophisticated pool will be a stronger pool, as well, and will “deserve” a higher admission rate. But it’s also legitimate to care about the difference (as Derek Bok and William Bowman clearly did).</p>
<p>If you hang out on CC, if you go to a high school with other people who apply to Yale or you otherwise know people like that, it’s easy to miss that lots of students just have no clue about lots of things in elite college admissions, and no clue that they should be paying attention to find out about things until well into their senior years. How many of those students are really bona fide candidates for Yale or Harvard is open to question, but I’m sure there are some out there. (If you watch CC enough, you will see lots and lots of kids who had no idea what a SAT II was until well into their senior years. At most high schools, for most students, SAT IIs are not even a topic of discussion.) Harvard, at least, ultimately decided that it mattered more to reach as many of those students as it could and to evaluate them on an equal footing with everyone else than it did to offer the convenience of EA. </p>
<p>And really that’s all EA is for Yale or Harvard – a convenience offered to strong students. Yale and Harvard don’t need EA for marketing. Harvard did fine without it. There IS some attractiveness to the notion that an admissions department should evaluate everyone at the same time, on the same basis, rather than in two tranches. </p>
<p>Back in my day, none of the Ivies had any early decision/action program, and the world worked just fine. I think EA is a good idea, but it’s hard to tell what Yale gets out of it. It’s really just a nice thing to do for strong students who know what they want, and if even a few strong but unsophisticated candidates get disadvantaged by it, that may be enough to call it into question.</p>