I was blown away to see that BC has decided to go “all in” on ED (ED1 and ED2) the year after dropping its restrictions on its EA program. Such different directions! Makes one wonder what is driving all of these decisions, and I don’t think it relates to any consideration of what is best for potential applicants.
Will BC get better students? I don’t think so. The ED and RD applicant pool will not include those who apply and get in to Georgetown and ND early, or any students who applied this last year ED to any number of schools. But one might argue that these students, even if they had applied to BC, were mostly going to end up elsewhere. But what BC will get is up to half of their admitted class at a 100% yield rate, pumping their overall yield up over 30% probably. It is actually really interesting to look at the RD yields of many schools of with ED. They are often surprisingly low and speak to the reality of their competitive position in the college landscape despite a high “overall yield” (including ED). But that is for another post! It will be interesting to see if the culture changes at BC (not that it may need to, I am just reacting to some comments made above) where more students feel like they got into their number one choice (BC) as a result of participating in an ED round. BC is a great school and students there should never feel that they have ended up going to to a second rate school. It is just that BC competes in the twin vortices of the top catholic schools and northeast ivies/LACS where BC ends up often as a second or third choice among those cohorts - though a great one. BC’s enrolled student stats are strong. Not as strong as the admitted class, but they do not suffer the fall off that some other schools experience (BU for example). BC’s applicant pool has never been the biggest due to its position as a Catholic school, but it has been a strong and increasingly better pool.
Word of caution too. No one knows how “preferential” BC will be in its ED admissions rates as this is the first year, and the various early round steps of the past couple of years contributes to uncertainty as to how the process will be managed. Students won’t want to throw away other options until they have a sense of how much of an admission advantage they will get in BC’s ED round. And ED2 generally confers much more limited admissions advantages, but it is better than RD if BC is the first choice standing at that point…
From the students’ perspective, while ED can make sense for some applicants who truly value one school above all others, there are a lot of students who feel compelled to cut their losses and apply ED to a school to enhance their chances of acceptance to one of several top schools - the others of which might prove more competitive (@bbfan1927 - BC, GT and ND examples). Of course, with so many of the top schools having ED programs, it is increasingly difficult to apply early to several high quality schools without restriction - making the ED choice almost mandatory for many many applicants - particularly in view of the ridiculous RD admission rates at ED schools. But this obviously leaves some students with the sense that they may have left something on the table.
For my son, the choice was simple. Apply ED somewhere or go very broadly EA at the best available schools (ND, Georgetown, BC, Michigan, UVA). He chose the latter as, like many college seniors in October, he had preferences but no clear top choice - and he wanted to have some choices.He also did end up throwing in applications in the RD round to several top schools that had ED, but with single digit admission rates in that round the results were predictable. For him, the EA process worked out well as he ended up having choices and going to a school that he absolutely has fallen in love with - and just was not there at the time of application given limited exposure. Having four months to navigate that process after admission was a blessing in disguise.
I totally get why BC is doing this. At the same time, I think they could have done a lot more to try to capture yield from its EA admits. They have a head start on these kids, and a more targeted effort might have proven more effective. My son got personal invites to events from other EA schools that he was admitted to, while BC just referenced him to a website where there were some events listed an hour and a half away.
Lastly, I agree with @bluebayou as to what the “right thing to do” is for BC. That is to follow their Jesuit ideal and go for SCEA or go back to REA. I just think that BC has some unique yield issues as a result of the schools that they are competing with for applicants, that will be hard to address meaningfully in the short term. And they are tired of being a punching bag on the yield issue as compared to equivalent schools that have ED, and perhaps processing financial aid applications for kids who are not likely to show up. As I wrote above, follow the RD yield if you really want to get a sense of where kids want to go.
It will be very interesting to see that the BC ED applicant pool looks like and how many of these students BC elects to admit. Hopefully there will be room on the back end for many other highly qualified students.
