http://www.browndailyherald.com/2018/11/13/early-decision-applications-surge-class-2023/
"Dean of Admission Logan Powell presented statistics on the early decision applicants for the class of 2023 in light of the University’s Nov. 1 deadline at yesterday’s Brown University Community Council meeting.
Many trends are “beginning to take place because of Brown Promise,” an initiative to replace student loans with grants in University financial aid packages, Powell said. For example, the University saw a “staggering” 20 percent increase in the volume of early decision applicants, from 3,501 for the class of 2022 to 4,169 for the class of 2023. The number of early applicants who indicated an interest in applying for financial aid also increased by 11 percent over last year, which Powell said is “exactly what we hoped to see.”
Wow. That is sobering and likely means big increases at other schools as well.
I was secretly hoping that every school on my D’s list would report a 20% decline in apps! Lol
Yale only increased 5%, I haven’t searched out any others yet. And this may just be a shift from RD to ED applications.
As the admissions dean said, this big jump is probably due in large part to Brown’s decision to eliminate loans from financial aid packages. Previously, people who wanted to apply ED but needed to compare financial aid offers were probably unlike to apply binding ED to Brown, since they would be committing themselves to taking out student loans. Brown is a very attractive school, and I’m not surprised that being able to compete on a more (though still not totally) equal financial playing field with some peer institutions is resulting in increased applications.
I wonder if Harvard’s SCEA applications were up, as perhaps with the lawsuit, unhooked high stat kids may think they have a better chance now?
You typically won’t see jumps like 20% for EA or SCEA colleges, not only the financial aid but the difference betwee the RD acceptance of 7% compared to ED’s of 21% is another big reason. Even if there are a lot of reasons for the ED rate, the perception is that Brown is 3x as hard in RD as ED, and that drives ED apps as well.