Early Decision Applications Up despite Financial Meltdown

<p>U Georgia EA up 5%
Transfer</a> GPA minimum to increase in 2010 - News</p>

<p>im sorry, but i dont get how the poor economy is driving up ED applicants.
pleasee!! will someone please explain?!!</p>

<p>It seems to me that 1) overall there are more students in this class--which alone would lean towards some bigger numbers (and/or make folks worry more about "getting in" so they want to get in sooner,) and 2) economic insecurity can make folks look for other forms of security. So, psychologically, the idea of a "safe bet" in what feels like an "unsafe" climate makes some sense. And then there is: if the stock market doesn't make sense sometimes, why would the admissions market?</p>

<p>Don't be so touchy, researchmaven. I didn't say I wasn't interested, I said the data isn't really interesting. Early applications everywhere, like applications everywhere, have been going up steadily year after year. More kids apply to college, some of them file more applications, and some of them file more early applications. It IS interesting that economic uncertainty hasn't dented the trend much, apparently, but there are at least a couple of not-very-interesting explanations for that w/re these colleges:</p>

<p>-- some of them are known for very good aid, and it's completely rational to apply ED there if your family has uncomplicated finances
-- some of them barely have any students on financial aid
-- some of them have quite low numbers of ED applicants, so that a "20% increase" could mean 30 people.</p>

<p>My guess is several things are going on here. First, a bad economy generally drives up college attendance; there just aren't many viable alternatives for young people, and college---especially an elite college---looks like a relatively safe investment in the future. I'd expect overall college applications and attendance rates to rise. ED applications are a "leading indicator" of this larger trend because ED deadlines are earlier.</p>

<p>Second, for people who still have money to invest, there really aren't a lot of attractive investment alternatives out there are the moment. So investing in your kid's education looks like a pretty good "buy." I'll bet a lot of the ED applicants are "full pays" looking for early certainty that they'll be able to attend a top college at a time when there's nothing particularly better to do with Mom & Dad's money.</p>

<p>Third, I think a lot of LACs, even the best of them, have traditionally been "back-ups"---I won't say "safeties" because they're more selective than that---for many highly qualified applicants with Ivy ambitions. If you don't get into Harvard, Williams or Amherst will do nicely, thank you, But the competition for Ivy-level admissions has become so fierce that some top applicants are just throwing in the towel and setting their sights on top LACs as their #1 choice, and going ED to up the odds of getting into their #1 school---which of course brings its own bragging rights. Why make Yale your top choice and face likely disappointment, when you can make Swarthmore your top choice and, if you apply ED, have a pretty good chance? (It's like the old story about Yogi Berra who reputedly said about his once-favorite restaurant, "No one goes there anymore; it's too crowded.") </p>

<p>This is certainly true of my own D. She's only a junior, so we won't know fully where she stands until she gets all her junior-year grades and test scores, but even if she could be competitive for the Ivies, she now expresses zero interest in them on grounds that her chances of admission are so slim that it's not even worth the effort. Instead, she has three leading LACs at the top of her list and will likely apply ED to one of them, provided Mom and Dad can figure out the financing.</p>

<p>As far as the upsurge in ED apps, I also wonder about the portion of those applicants represented by athletes. I wouldn't be surprised if that percentage has gone up and helped to drive the numbers up. I spend time on athletic forums such as hsbaseballweb.com, and parents are becoming more aware each year of the advantage that ED gives athletes. There was a series done by the NY Times on athletic recruiting a couple of years ago, which featured detailed discussion of the ED process, that is widely referenced on these websites and on CollegeConfidential as well, so parents are have been increasingly exposed to that information. With the ever increasing amounts of money and time each year that parents and kids are putting into sports, I wouldn't be surprised if that is helping to drive up the ED numbers. The colleges know what % of ED apps are recruited athletes, so they would know whether this is true...just don't know how much they would discuss it.</p>

<p>And I think the points made above by bclintonk really have come into play...I know they did for my son. He felt he could get a better education at a top LAC than an Ivy, and have a much better shot at getting in with ED. So like bclintonk said, why even bother with the Ivies? My son got a letter from Brown inviting him to one of their athletic camps and wasn't even tempted. And these decisions were made well before the economic downturn, so the economy didn't really play a role in it.</p>

<p>Financial Aid for Early Decision (Brown Univ):</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/603260-financial-aid-early-decision.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/603260-financial-aid-early-decision.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Casey75 -- College coaches, especially at D3 level (NESCAC, etc) and non-scholarship D1 (i.e. Ivies) strongly encourage recruited or tipped athletes to apply ED, because it allows the coaches to lock in their rosters as early as possible and gives them more clout with admissions. However, this has long been the case, and roster size has not significantly increased. If anything, it has decreased. Hence, it seems unlikely that athletes would account for the rise in ED apps, unless they are ``hopeful,'' athletes, rather than actual recruits.</p>

<p>WyattEarp - you might want to take a look at the series of articles done by the NY Times in late 2005 through the first half of early 2006, which claims otherwise. It is stated more than once in the several articles that athletes, particularly at the D3 level, are applying ED at ever increasing rates. One Haverford 2005 grad stated that when he played baseball there, the team was mostly comprised of walk-ons. There is also discussion of increasing trickle-down from D1 to D3. I also know of teams at such schools as Vassar and Haverford where the roster numbers HAVE gone up. Haverford and Dickinson now carry 32-35 players on their baseball rosters, unlike in the recent past. The Vassar coach told me that they have, in the past couple of years, been able to get a roster of 21-23 players, something they had trouble doing in the past. Here is a link to one of the articles where this is discussed:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/sports/16decision.html?_r=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/sports/16decision.html?_r=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Yes, familiar with the NYT series. Also know many D3 coaches well. You are not wrong to point to athletic influence in D3 ED admissions. However, in most cases (not familiiar with Vassar policies; Haverford somewhat more) admissions offices are not easily extending greater influence to coaches, because coaches will overrun with requests. (Give inch, take mile). In other words, on a roster of, say, 30 baseball players at a D3 school, the coach might be getting X number of tips a year (in NESCAC) and a couple other wishes (less influential). If the roster expands but the entering freshman class does not, coach is unlikely to get more tips. Exception would be if college decides to make a splash by winning some games, with the president's approval. But a D3 baseball roster with 35 players would surely include some walk-ons who were admitted through the front door and showed up on day one at practice. Unlikely that a D3 baseball coach would have influenced admissions decisions on 35 athletes in a school of less than 2,000 students with many other varisity sports. The math doesn't work. That would translate to more than 100 FB players. D3 schools have emphasized sports in recent years, but not to that extreme.</p>

<p>Wyatt - you can holster your pistols. All I did was reference remarks made by experts in the field. If you want to argue with them, that's fine.</p>

<p>My understanding re: athletics at D3 schools is identical to Wyatt, for what it's worth. D3 coaches that we spoke at the small schools had very few "tips" or "recruits." Congrats if your child is a recruited athlete!</p>

<p>this WSJ blog ( How</a> I Got Into College: 5 Stories - WSJ.com ) reports early applications at....</p>

<p>Amherst up 5%
Barnard up 8%
Cornell up 9%</p>

<p>note that the wording in this blog, "early applications up....from where they were this time last year" doesn't necessarily mean they are purely ED numbers.</p>

<p>^^^ excellent article - required reading - thanks for the link</p>

<p>Bibbist - I understand the D3 recruiting process very well, just having gone through it with my son (thanks for the congrats on that). The flaw with the argument that WyattEarp is making regarding rosters and tips is that those are applicable to recruited students who are accepted, not those who apply. You can have many more apply ED than will be accepted or that you have "slots" for, so it doesn't really matter how many tips or slots a coach has. For example, in the NY Times series mentioned, a lacrosse coach was quoted that he had 20 players on his ED list given to Admissions. Only 10 of those were accepted. There is no reason he might not have had 23 on his list the next year. Coaches are only limited in how many kids they get to apply ED by their own moral compass (to his credit, the lacrosse coach did say that he told the players lower on his list that their chances were not great). I'm not sure why this point is generating so much interest, anyway. In my original post I remarked that more athletes applying ED could account for a portion of the increase...it's not like I'm suggesting they account for the whole increase.</p>

<p>Occidental up 3.5%</p>

<p>Early</a> Decision Application Pool Likely to Increase Again - News</p>

<p>ED applicant size = 1049 applications. That is a less than one percent decrease from last year's 1055 ED applicant pool, which was the largest ED applicant pool in Johns Hopkins history</p>

<p>Hopkins</a> Insider</p>

<p>sorry researchmaven, I got the urge to update, using your format......</p>

<p>ED applications:</p>

<p>George Washington University-Up 50%
St. Olaf - Up 50%
Wesleyan - Up 40%
Claremont McKenna - Up 28%
Duke - Up 25%
Pomona - Up 20%
Northwestern - Up 15 %
University of Richmond - Up 14%
Colby - Up 13%
Haverford - Up 13%
Dartmouth - Up 12.5%
Middlebury - Up 12%
Cornell – Up 9% (probably ED, but may be more)
Barnard – Up 8% (probably ED, but may be more)
Hamilton - Up 8%
Bowdoin - Up 7.9%
Union College - Up 7%
Amherst – Up 5% (probably ED, but may be more)
Occidental – Up 3.5%
NYU - Up 2.3%
Dickinson – flat
Johns Hopkins - <0.6>
Brown - <4.5>
Williams - <6.5> (as of 11/14)</p>

<p>MIT EA Up 25%
Stanford EA Up 18%
Yale EA Up 10.4%</p>

<p>The recent new york times article on this seems to ignore the fact that if you can demonstrate that the financial aid package you are given is truly inadequate, then you can choose not to enroll in favor of a more generous offering. This whole thing makes me nervous, because I applied early decision to a real reach school (Amherst), and I was hoping doing so would give me a slight advantage, but now it seems like it was taken away. I just think that some people now aren't serious about the early decision, they're just being more rash because of the times. Maybe I'm just being crazy, but either way, my decision to commit to my first choice school has been cheapened by this sharp increase.</p>

<p>I'm wondering why Williams is down so much while Amherst is up.</p>