EA and ED - Are they good for students

Parents Forum
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<p>Northwestern admitted 925 early decision applicants Thursday evening, filling about 45 percent of the class of 2018.</p>

<p>This cycle marks the largest number of students accepted through early decision in NU history, up from 43 percent last year. The Office of Undergraduate Admission received 2,863 applications, about a 16 percent increase from last year.</p>

<p>Christopher Watson, dean of undergraduate admissions, said University President Morton Schapiro set a goal of accepting 45 percent of the class through the early decision round.</p>

<p>“We’re only comfortable doing that number knowing it was students we would absolutely want to admit,” Watson said. “So that just took a lot of extra recruiting on our part. The more selective you become as an institution — and this is true of all of our peer schools — the more students are going to apply early to you and that’s the case here.”</p>

<p>Watson added filling 45 percent of the freshman class will likely become the norm moving forward. But he said does not expect that percentage to rise. The percentage has risen drastically in the past few years. In 2010, only 28 percent of the freshman class was admitted through the early decision round.</p>

<p>Schapiro told The Daily last week that in between fundraising trips, he helped Watson with the decisions.</p>

<p>"It's just so hard to keep everything straight and figure out how to make these decisions," Schapiro said. "But it's gratifying. The strength of the early pool is mind-boggling this year."</p>

<p>Watson agreed the quality of admitted applicants has also increased. While the admissions office does not release specific statistics for the early decision round, Watson said the admits are NU’s most diverse early decision group and the average SAT score has risen about 25 points over the last two years, which he called a “huge jump.”</p>

<p>Schapiro said he has seen a similar growth in applicants who are applying to NU as their first choice.</p>

<p>"There are so many kids, more so than I've ever seen, definitely than the last couple years, who absolutely have just virtually perfect SATs, ACTs and just great GPAs and they only want to come here," he said. "They're not coming here and applying in the spring because they were deferred from Yale or Stanford or rejected. They're here because this is where they want to be."</p>

<p>The acceptance rate was about 32 percent, down slightly from 33 percent last year, and Watson said the regular decision round will once again be extremely competitive.</p>

<p>“Obviously your chances are going to be a little better if we’re your first choice and that’s a good thing for the school,” he said. “We want students here for whom Northwestern’s a first choice and not a back up and almost half the class has said, 'Northwestern’s my first choice.' That’s great.”</p>

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<p>This is nice news for Northwestern, but when will colleges simply admit that ED is a form of yield protection? The schools that are making heavy use of ED (Northwestern, Duke, and UPenn) do it to lock up students and take them out of the running from more competitive schools (such as Yale and Stanford).</p>

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<p>I don’t think NU cares about protecting yield just for the sake of protecting yield (it doesn’t count for very much in the rankings, maybe a fraction of a percent). It genuinely wants students whose first choice is NU (it makes a difference on campus), and applying ED is the strongest signal they can give. NU certainly has no shortage of ED applicants with great numbers and compelling stories, and many of them are outright rejected. NU has chosen to admit 45% of the class through ED because the high quality of the applicant pool warrants it. It would not do so otherwise. That said the majority of slots, 55% of the class, are still open for RD applicants!</p>

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<p>Cue7,</p>

<p>This is 2013, not 2003. Yield protection is so yesterday. Test scores and HS class rank are more important than yield in USN rankings. ED may pull down test scores and class rank slightly.</p>

<p>As for “lock up students and take them out of the running from more competitive schools (such as Yale and Stanford)”, I got three points for you:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>ED applicants in return got a much higher chance to get into NU and they seem quite happy with that. Don’t make it sound like they are victims. Between NU and ED applicants, it’s more like a win-win situation. But there are always those glass half-empty outsiders.</p></li>
<li><p>To certain extent, EA takes applicants out of the running for Harvard and Yale. It probably makes some, if not many, applicants complacent and less motivated on their Harvard/Yale applications. </p></li>
<li><p>EA probably has higher impact on overall yield than ED while at the same time, doesn’t give students as much boost to their chance. So EA is not necessarily more beneficial to the applicants than ED. It all depends on how you look at them. It is less restrictive however. Some schools get a third or quarter of their applicants from EA; the yield is probably significantly higher than that from RD (though not nearly 100% like ED). A higher yield from 1/3 of the pool may very well have higher impact on the overall yield than ~100% yield from less than 1/10 of the pool. EA is probably the best strategy for yield protection.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>People who have problems with ED but are quite happy with their schools’ EA seem like hypocrites to me. If they really have such a high standard, they should be asking to get rid of all sorts of early admission, be it EA or ED.</p>

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<p>Do you guys think that the overall strength (in terms of test scores, GPA, etc.) will be greater or lesser for RD applicants?</p>

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<p>Sam Lee,</p>

<p>I absolutely think that all types of early admission should be banished because it detracts from student choice and shortens the amount of time they have available to make a college decision. </p>

<p>Both EA and ED offer great institutional benefits, but adversely impact students’ options. The institutional benefits might not relate directly to US News rankings, because factors such as acceptance rate and yield matter less in these rankings. Nevertheless, there are benefits schools still pursue, because not all is driven by the rankings. For instance, Schools that emphasize open EA (like UChicago) can inflate their application numbers and drive down acceptance rate. Schools that emphasize ED can ensure a 100% yield rate on nearly 50% of the class, and then be more cautious with RD accepts. I imagine ED also keeps administrative costs lower, as the office deals with a smaller volume of applications in the early round.</p>

<p>I don’t think either option is good. When did I ever say I had a problem with ED, but not a problem with EA? Both programs serve different institutional policies, but adversely impact applicants.</p>

<p>I’d prefer a one round application policy because students can then make a college decision at an optimal time: when they actually know the schools that have accepted them. They can they investigate the schools that accepted them, and go from there. What good is it to pour hours of research into prospective schools (like NU, Dartmouth, Penn, etc.), when you don’t even yet know if you’ll have the chance to go there? The best time to make a decision is after having a range of options. I tend to think EA is a lesser evil than ED because its not as restrictive, but they are both poor policies. </p>

<p>Students are “victims” in the sense that there doesn’t seem to be much reason for colleges to play early/regular decision games, outside of the somewhat artifical reasons (to inflate the admissions numbers) that I presented above. Yet they do anyway, for both ED and EA schools, and this hurts applicants. </p>

<p>Put another way, why are there early policies - of any kind - any way? They don’t seem to benefit students. Rather, they restrict student options, which, to me, is never positive for students (but it’s certainly positive for the schools).</p>

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<p>This is a great article that, while old, profiles issues with Early Decision:</p>

<p><a href=“https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~bmayes/pdf/the_early_decision_racket.pdf[/url]”>https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~bmayes/pdf/the_early_decision_racket.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A similar article could be written for early action. Some may note that this post is old but I’d imagine that, if anything of late, it’s even more relevant today, with more and more schools following the model UPenn established a couple decades back, and more schools filling up higher percentages of the class early.</p>

<p>Early decision/action programs curiously reward students for making important decisions before they have as much feasible information as would be desired when making such important choices! (ED probably rewards this more than EA, although they are both birds of the same feather.)</p>

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<p>Cue, you actually are missing a ton of the institutional benefit, including the main reason: as a general matter, those who are “set” on a particular school earlier are more excited, on average, about their particular school. They tend to be more involved on campus, less negative about the school from a chip-on-shoulder perspective, and generally contribute to a more vibrant campus community than an average RD student. This all has obvious benefits for students as well.</p>

<p>Source: Morty Shapiro’s class on the economics of higher education.</p>

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<p>I bet that schools model this financially as well.</p>

<p>Students applying early are probably higher income than the regular decision pool, since they are willing to take a risk on financial aid by not having multiple offers, which would allow them to compare packages and to negotiate.</p>

<p>Thus full need schools like Northwestern can continue to advertise they meet full need, while not actually having to support as much aggregate need as they would have if fewer were accepted early.</p>

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<p>No one is forced to apply EA or ED anywhere, cue. Give it up. </p>

<p>If someone goes ED to a school they didn’t really want to and then they feel “trapped,” that’s on them.</p>

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<p>“decision/action programs curiously reward students for making important decisions before they have as much feasible information as would be desired when making such important choices! (ED probably rewards this more than EA, although they are both birds of the same feather.)”</p>

<p>The “information” that they had was that they loved NU and were willing to forsake all others to go there. Why is that “insufficient information”? Nothing about a given set of schools changes between December and May of senior year. I agree ED isn’t wise if one needs financial aid, but that’s a different issue.</p>

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<p>I am a huge fan of EA and rolling admissions but not of ED. EA and rolling give the student early options but without having to make a final decision so early in the process. Yes, Pizzagirl, schools don’t change from December to May but 17-18 year old kids do. My daughter applied EA to Yale, was admitted, but wound up at Northwestern because after a lot more research and soul searching and visiting she concluded that NU was the better place for her (she was admitted to other schools as well and they were part of the midnight decision process also). Oh and it didn’t make her any less excited or involved or negative with a chip-on-shoulder perspective. She was actually the first Freshman to win an award in the long history of this particular award and she enticed us to be large donors to the school. I am not, for the record, a fan of Morty’s at all, for so many reasons, but that’s another issue.</p>

<p>I believe it’s nice to have options early on but not to be committed too soon.</p>

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<p>amtc,</p>

<p>I see your point about EA giving applicants more time and how it worked out well for your daughter. But for every one of those, there may be more of those that are enjoying the benefits arbiter mentioned.</p>

<p>Furthermore, between giving more time to college applicants for their college decision and creating a more vibrant community, it simply makes sense that the latter is more important and central to NU’s mission.</p>

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<p>Some students are ready to apply ED. My son told us at the beginning of his junior year of high school that he thought he wanted to apply ED to NU. We told him that he would need to thoroughly research other options and we would need to thoroughly research NU’s financial aid policies and practices before agreeing to do so. A year later, after he toured ten colleges and universities, researched their course listings, sat in on classes, talked to students, and met with professors, and after I talked to NU financial aid staff, students and their parents about NU’s financial aid and poured over College Confidential, he still wanted to apply ED to NU and we agreed. We didn’t find another option that was as good a fit both for him personally and for his intended major/career. And I knew that with NU’s quarter system, even if my son had a change of heart about his major down the road, he could easily change majors or double major and still be at a school that was a good personal fit for him. NU was generous with financial aid. My son has thrived there. Could we have gotten a better financial aid package elsewhere? Possibly. Would it have been as good a fit for him? I doubt it.</p>

<p>That said, I believe some students experience a pressure to choose a school to apply ED to before they are ready. ED is not for most students. But for some students, it is a great option to have. </p>

<p>@amtc
The concern about students with a “chip on their shoulder” pertains to those who are not accepted at their first choice school and feel they are settling by going to another school. It seems like this was not the case with your daughter - that she was accepted to her first choice school and then chose another school over it.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, my response is in two parts: 1.) the adverse impact on students and 2.) whether ED offers that many actual benefits to the schools.</p>

<p>1.) Adverse Impact on Students</p>

<p>If you have a minute, please read the article I linked to above, entitled “the Early Decision Racket.” (<a href=“https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~bmayes/pdf/the_early_decision_racket.pdf[/url]”>https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~bmayes/pdf/the_early_decision_racket.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) This article neatly summarizes the problems with ED, and demonstrates how ED really only adversely impacts applicants. I think these problems have only amplified as more schools emphasize ED. </p>

<p>Also, in terms of having more choice, I’d imagine students make the most educated decisions, and are the most informed investigators, when they actually have choices in hand. Students and families (especially less wealthy ones) are probably more willing to visit schools that accept them, and accepted student days (only offered in the spring) can be a good way to discern the feel of a school. Moreover, students can then engage in an active comparison of departments and programs of the schools that accept them.</p>

<p>Really, I think the article linked above really sums everything up nicely. Moreover, now, the pressure to apply early has only increased, because there is such a disparity between early and regular accept rates. In what ways is this helpful for students - it seems to just increase the stress and condense the time to make important decisions.</p>

<p>2.) Does ED really benefit the schools?</p>

<p>I’m really beginning to doubt how much benefit schools reap from ED. I suspect one of the biggest benefits is financial (wealthy students with less need apply early), but let’s leave that to the side - as that’s unseemly on its own. </p>

<p>The old argument has always been, ED allows schools to pick up students who really love the school, rather than students who see the school as a second choice. So, the student who loves NU more than any other applies ED, and the student who wants to use NU as a Princeton backup does not. </p>

<p>In actuality, though, aren’t most students relatively reasonable beings, and don’t most top schools offer outstanding resources? Would the student who “loves” NU from the start really add more to the school than the Princeton reject who is accepted to NU? I imagine the Princeton reject, like any reasonable person, would grow to love NU quite quickly. After admit day, over the summer connecting with other admits, and then once on school at orientation, I really don’t know if there’d be that much of a difference between the ED accept and the Princeton reject. </p>

<p>Perhaps years ago, when there were more significant disparities in experience (I’m thinking Penn in the 1970s, compared to Princeton at the same time), the “chip on the shoulder” feeling would persist. Now though, all the top schools have worked very hard to make for quite nurturing, supportive college environments. </p>

<p>It’s strange for colleges to think there is so much qualitative benefit to ED for students. I think the real reasons colleges use ED are for the reasons outlined in the Atlantic article (to drop the accept rate and appear more desirable, to lessen the amount of financial aid needed, and to push up yield.) US News doesn’t measure these factors, but note how often administrators tout a low accept rate, a good yield, strong application numbers, etc. </p>

<p>Most of these reasons, to me, are just vanity, and it comes at the cost of students. It doesn’t rise to the level of unconscionablity, and students aren’t coerced or forced into this, but it certainly increases pressure and makes students feel more compelled to make certain decisions earlier.</p>

<p>In an already stressful process, this isn’t good.</p>

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<p>The majority of slots (about 1,100) are still available in the RD round. There are many colleges out there for which that is essentially their entire class (e.g. UChicago has maybe what, 1,300 students per class?). Pretend the target class size is 1,100 total so the ED/RD breakdown wouldn’t even matter.</p>

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<p>Thanks Cue7, you said it much better than I.</p>

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<p>Not a fan of ED for our family. We live in a fairly affluent area, but we, ourselves are not affluent. Here is our take on it:
According to the NPC, Northwestern is in our ballpark. However, we cannot, in good faith, have DS apply to NU ED. Why? Because, as a family, we are not in a position to bind ourselves to a financial commitment this big without seeing what the other schools offer. Conversely, DS has many friends who are in a different league financially, and comparing packages is not something they are even remotely worried about. So they can apply to NU ED, and enjoy that “bump” simply because their parents can afford it.</p>

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<p>Moderator’s Note</p>

<p>Not sure why this has devolved into EA and ED discussion. Moving it into general forum since it is not specific to Northwestern.</p>

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<p>I think ED and EA are both great, wonderful choices to have. The problem is that ED has become something it was never intended to be. A lot of this is because most people are true amateurs in the selective college process and truly don’t understand a lot of how it works. They can too easily get caught up in a tide, and let momentum and peer pressure take them where they really did not want to go. High school counselors are woefully inadequate most of the time to “tell it like it is”, and there are all sorts of tales out there that are outright false.</p>

<p>A kid who has a truly good reason to want to go to his first choice college with the support of his parent has a stellar case for ED. I saw a perfect example early in this app season, where a dad and his son scoped out CMU and decided it was THE school that the son most wanted to go They got an estimate from the school as well as checking out a number of NPCs for CMU and other colleges on the consideration list. They understood and were willing to accept that they may lose out on financial merit aid and have to pay a bit of a premium for son to make the commitment to go there. They had a very good idea of what kind of aid, loans, etc that they would get if their son were accepted. For that extra benefit in admissions (and in the case of CMU guaranteed meeting of need as they define it, something not there for RD students), they knew what they would be giving up. It was all good. </p>

<p>But that’s not what often happens. It often becomes a wild scramble to pick an ED school, to take advantage of the ED percentage, and kids are trying to decide between, say NW and Vanderbilt and Dartmout all at the 11th hour with no clear idea of what the differences are among the schools. They just want to get into the best school in terms of rank, rep and recognition wiht the best chance of acceptance. There becomes quite the frenzy in the fall. Some kids end up settling—better a good chance at NW when even the uptick in accept chances at HPYMS are still lottery tickets, so they make that decision, never even really giving some schools a try, that may well have accepted them. At a time, age, opportunity to shoot for the stars, settling for the lunar landing is a bit premature in my opinion. Too many kids are applying ED without sufficient info to make that kind of a commitment. This is not what ED is supposed to be. </p>

<p>It also rewards those kids already so advantaged with parents savvy enough to push the process through. The kids without some knowledgeable adult in their lives lose out, as again, few high school counselors can spend that kind of time and give the attention needed to push an ED app out. THe ED pool is comprised primarily of well to do kids, tagged kids, simply because having the adult help ups the chances astronomically in getting an ED app out. What that does, is reduce the acceptance chances for those not as privileged.</p>

<p>Then there is the financial aid That is the dirty secret with ED. Yes, many ED schools guarantee to meet full need, but they define it. This is the very first financial aid package a familiy is likely to see and they have to decide in a vacuum whether they should try to make it work or just start all over. Yes, you can turn it down, but when you are in the ED rush, with momentum pushing you along right to the acceptance that you’ve been hoping, some even praying for, most families just take it after some request for review. You have no idea what else your kid can be getting, and money seems so trivial as compared to the joy on your child’s face. But the discrepancy is not just that dollar amount but times 4 and then some as costs go up over time. Not only that, the estimated PROFILE app can be way off. When the actual FAFSA is filed and the real numbers are revealed, it can mean more money. For a family where every $100 means something, this can be some serious financial stress. Plus you tend to get these accepts right before the school closes down for winter break so you get to stew over the package till the new year. You then are under the gun to come to agreement or cut loose and make sure the schoool doesn’t put the kid on the ED circulated list that could get his app flushed at schools that subscribre to it. I’ve seen all of this happen. </p>

<p>The very schools to which I think ED might be so beneficial for those who have need, HPYSM, do not have it. Those schools offer the best financial aid packages overall, in my experiene too I see kids locking themselves into an acceptance to a school that I really think had a decent chance of accepting them and they can’t negotiate a dime. When my kid ogt a merit award, he was able to double it by showing he got more elsewhere. A lot of schools will reconsider an award when presented with a competing school giving out more. You lose this edge. And I’ve seen like school offers differ by a lot. Experienced board members here have stated that absolutely, the range is wide when it comes to fin aid packages. So ED, to me is not always a good thing, and for those who are financially under the gun already, losing the ability to compare can be a huge loss. IT can also be catastrophic for those who have businesses or other situations where the aid package is way off. A lot of stress and heartache when you have to tell your kid it’s a no go. No one is happy with you when that happens believe. me.</p>

<p>In life, the up sides of things have to be weighed with the ramifications of the possible down sides. With so many great choices in colleges in this country, how can it possibly be so crucial to get into one school? It’s not like it’s some true golden ticket here. And the down sides can really strike some hurtful blows. I don’t think it’s worth it, if a family is needing, hoping for money, and paying as little as possible for a given type of school. How much extra is it worth to get an ED to Lehigh vs RD at Lafayette with more money, like a lot more money? That’s the kind of ED I too often see. Really, is it worth it to lock into William and Mary OOS, and not consider your own state schools and what they may have to offer at half the price? I’m not talking about those who have well done their homework and have very good reason for their picks, but about those who are just looking at lists to pick an ED school to get that ED edge which is what I have seen the process turn into.</p>

<p>EA, is great. Takes the stress of the kids, and then they can apply to whatever schools with wild abandon because they have a safety in the bag. Then the awards and packages all go on the table in April and are taken into consideration as well. What a kid might so want in the fall, have his tongue hanging out and begging for in the beginning of the process may well change by spring. You learn through the process, and ED cuts that learning off right in the first stage. Maybe that honors program is a better go than trying to get into the same sort of program sophomore year at another school, but you didn’t have that all understood in October. Yeah, I 've seen that. And is BC truly $30K a year better than Fordham? These are things you can discuss around the table when you are not already signed, sealed and delivered to a school.</p>