<p>For the class of 2015, Penn received nearly 18 percent more ED applications, bringing the total to 4,557up from 3,851 a year ago.</p>
<p>Duke and Johns Hopkins are up by nearly 14 percent, having received 2,282 and 1,314 applications each. Further south, Rice saw an increase of about 15 percent, with 1000 early applications.</p>
<p>Among schools with nonbinding early action programs, Northwestern is up by a stunning 25 percent, and the University of Chicago continues on a roll with an 18.5 percent increase in early applications. MIT is up by about 15 percent, and Boston College reports a 7 percent increase over last year. </p>
<p>Locally, Georgetown received nearly 9 percent more applications for its restrictive early action program through which students are free to apply to other early action programs but prohibited from applying Early Decision elsewhere.</p>
<p>On the west coast, Stanfords Office of Admission reports receiving approximately 5,950 applications under its single choice early action program. This represents a 7 percent increase from last year.</p>
<p>At Brown University, 2,765 early decision applications were receivedabout 80 less than last year. </p>
<p>This weekend, high school students will continue the scramble to get essays and miscellaneous paperwork completed for the next major early application deadlineNovember 15.</p>
<p>A lot of stressed and panicked kids. I bet the majority of the ones applying ED are doing so, not because these colleges are their first choice (as it should be), but rather because they perceive their chances of admission will be higher if they apply ED.</p>
<p>Northwestern has Early Decision, and its “stunning” increase amounted to 420 applications. It gets a relatively low number of ED applications, probably because its ED program is small and does not seem to offer the kind of admissions boost that other colleges ED programs do.</p>
<p>But all of these big ED bumps put together only amount to a few thousand kids. Rice’s and Hopkins’ increases represent about 300 actual students between them. A number of ED schools saw declining ED applications. </p>
<p>Bottom line: There’s no massive ED panic sweeping the country.</p>
<p>JHS: But what it does do is give schools a chance to boost their selectivity by admitting more students ED. And though you argued against this hypothesis in another thread, you can observe that last year, schools that received more ED apps accepted more of them, leaving fewer spots to the RD rounds and therefore, a lower number of accepted students in general.</p>
<p>So what this boost in ED does is allow schools to lower their RD rates to extremely low percentages, which is what NU, Penn, and Duke will probably do this year. (There are already people on the Northwestern forum justifying this potential move. Clearly, ED benefits wealthy students, but everyone seems to be in denial about this obvious fact.)</p>
<p>“Clearly, ED benefits wealthy students, but everyone seems to be in denial about this obvious fact.”</p>
<p>Does everyone deny that ED benefits the wealthy? Hardly! Most observers seem to agree that ED offers advantages to the wealthy. However, ED also offers the same benefits to disadvantaged groups. People with very low EFC should not fear receiving inadequate financial aid. </p>
<p>And that does not even address the opinions of many people who consider the binding nature of the ED agreement to be utterly neaningless and toothless.</p>
<p>One advantage of taking in a high percentage of the class ED is two-fold: (1) you get students who genuinely be there (sure some might apply out of fear but they still had a choice of which school to apply to) creating a strong campus culture and a strong giving rate down the road, and (2) you can snag highly qualified kids early, including low-income students (who are sure to get a hefty amount of aid anyway regardless of which plan they apply under) who might have a blemish on their record but show promise otherwise. Top schools, particularly Penn, are more willing to take low-income kids who have a blemish on their record but have other things to show for it if they are confident that student will attend, and ED is a guarantee of that. The result is a win-win situation-- the low-income student gets the ED boost (and doesn’t have to compete in the more competitive RD round where they risk not getting into a top school at all), get into their top choice school, and the school’s yield stays intact or goes up. Some schools like Northwestern also allow students to back out of ED for demonstrated financial hardship, so if the aid is really not feasible, they can be released from the contract.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if you have full-pay high-stats students secured through ED, you can be a little bit looser in admitting low-income kids because you know there will be more money to go around (but as they say, the process is need-blind) and if low-income students’ stats are lower on average, your overall stats won’t be hurt by that much. Even if you admit half of the class ED and all of them full-pay (obviously an exaggerated hypothetical example), there’s still plenty of room for low-income and middle-income kids in the class. Northwestern has been against admitting a high percentage of the class ED, typically restricting ED kids to 1/4 of the class, but I think that should change. Wealthy families get a lot of flack but they are the reason poor and middle-income kids get the generous aid they need, and they play a significant role in keeping up the prestige of the school (talking it up in their social circles, donating to keep programs running, etc.).</p>
<p>“Clearly, admission to highly selective colleges, whether ED or RD, benefits wealthy students, but everyone seems to be in denial about this obvious fact.”</p>
<p>Phuriku, by “the people on the Northwestern thread,” you are referring to me, since I’m the only one on that thread who advocated a more aggressive use of ED. My motivation is not exclusively to lower the admit rate but as I explained above, also to 1) create a stronger campus culture, 2) increase the giving rate down the road, 3) have leeway admit more low-income students who on average have lower stats, 4) generate more aid for such students, 5) secure funding for expensive programs, and 6) increase the prestige of the school. I think we have a similar view on selectivity: it’s important to maintain/build up the aura of exclusivity a school needs to attract the best applicants, including low-income ones (I guarantee you that if you give low-income students a choice between Harvard and Northwestern or Harvard and UChicago, most of them will choose Harvard in large part because it’s more selective and prestigious).</p>
<p>I think that a lot of information gets left out of the ED/financial aid discussion. Many people don’t realize that several of the top schools have much more liberal fin aid policies than one would imagine, and in some cases have even moved to “no loan” packages. Students who would qualify for fin aid during the regular decision round will qualify during the ED round as well; the variation in packages from one top school to another is not particularly extreme. Now, if you think that your family is on the margin, that’s another story, but to say that lower income students are disadvantaged by ED is a bit of an exaggeration.</p>
<p>rockvillemom, Xiggi referenced a NY Times article (see above) which shows that Elon ED apps decreased from 408 to 348 (percentage decrease of 14%-ish) and EA apps decreased from 5,614 to 5,363 (percentage decrease of 4%-ish).</p>
<p>I find this interesting because it does not especially support the hypothesis that more students are applying ED because they are panicking and want to be sure they get in SOME place.</p>
<p>^^what I was told (just today by someone who definitely knows what she is talking about), the large increases in the ED/EA applicant pools this year are apparently from primarily international applicants; the countries specifically where the economy is and has been booming…</p>
<p>definitely not a “panic” situation on their part…
based on the NYtimes list, does this make sense…? are the large increases mostly from schools that attract international applicants?? possibly…</p>
<p>and the schools that have not shown much of an increase/flat/decreasing do not necessarily attract international applicants??</p>
<p>curious what others on here think…I’m honestly not sure…</p>
phuriku,
I don’t know which “Northwestern thread” you were referring to. As far as I know, nobody was promoting this on NU board. </p>
<p>If you are thinking that other schools like Duke, Penn, NU are using ED to play admission game and that UChicago is so pure, please note that EA generally has higher (likely significantly) yields than RD, though not 100% like ED. But EA pool is much larger than ED pool due to the non-binding feature. In the case of UChicago, almost 1/3 of their applicants are EA whereas for Duke/NU, less than 1/10 of the applicants are ED. As an anedote, Stanford’s yield has been getting higher and higher since they switched from ED to EA. Maybe EA is the one that has the greatest impact on admit rate after all.</p>