After watching this admissions cycle, one thing has become very clear: Early Decision gives a massive boost to admission chances. Given that most schools don’t meet 100% need, doesn’t this mean that admissions heavily favor the most wealthy students who can afford to commit without financial aid considerations.
While students can back out if they can’t afford it, they may miss other merit deadlines so this is an unwise decision to even attempt it. So therefore, the majority of students getting in via ED are the wealthy ones. These students 30-40% of the spots available, then you have athletes and preferred candidates taking more. That leaves half or less for the majority of students in the country. Then kids are applying to 10 or more schools in the hope they’ll get one of those slots. It’s no wonder why you see kids with spectacular stats getting denied.
That’s why kids are going elsewhere and other schools are filled with bright students. I really don’t understand all the hoopla over this. Great outcomes are not limited to top known private colleges or even publics. Getting into one of these top selective schools does not guarantee a job either.
It’s not fair at all. It gives unfair advantage to privileged and underprivileged while limiting RD odds for middle class, specially upper middle class.
It gives an unfair advantage to colleges as well, which is the reason they want to enroll a big percentage in early round.
@scubadive I hear you on that one. My 2023 son will be going to a public college and passing up on the highly selective college to which he was admitted. We don’t think the difference in education is worth the price tag for an engineering degree.
I have many friends and co-workers whose kids applied to a lot of schools this year and were shut out of nearly all. Most were not expecting this outcome. Our in-state public schools aren’t highly regarded (except for the flagship, really), and the flagship is incredibly hard to get into for some programs - kids were shut out of that, too.
ED is not much of a problem for students who need financial aid. Most schools will give an early FA read to a student who wishes to apply ED and if the school comes in with less aid, the student is free to withdraw. In reality, that rarely happens.
The problem is “merit” aid. This isn’t a problem at the very top schools because they don’t offer merit aid in the first place. But one level down, schools offer all kinds of merit scholarships and honors scholarships and awards. You can not get an early read on these and many times the Net Price Calculators are not accurate here. So a student who will not be eligible for much needs based aid, but who can’t afford to pay their expected family contribution have a very difficult time with ED.
Our family was in this situation. I don’t consider it a true handicap. There were plenty of excellent schools that offered merit aid and where EA or RD was not an issue.
@CupCakeMuffins I don’t think the underprivileged get that many of the spots, TBH. Most colleges don’t meet 100% need, so they would likely not be able to do ED at most schools. Even the ones that do meet full need don’t find all that many kids from the lowest SES who are able to meet the admission requirements. My son attends a gifted program at a Title 1 school. Many of his classmates are low income. In the last decade, only a single one has gained entrance to HYPSM - and that was one student who got into Stanford on a full scholarship. These are kids with high test scores, 13 AP classes under their belts, and near perfect GPAs to boot. Very few actually get into the truly elite schools.
Cost is changing colleges and the demographic of the student body. Most people cannot afford the tuition. So schools that were not on the radar screen are attracting top students changing the nature of the school. Also as we are going through an economic restructuring where technical skills are more needed and valued degrees such as engineering and cs are getting more competitive for admissions. The reality is just as there is a shortage of med school spots in relation to the amount we really need the same goes for the more technical degrees.
Applying ED to a school does not exclude you from applying before the merit deadline via RD. You may have to withdraw your application before you get a decision.
Need based aid only at Stanford. Terrific that this student gained acceptance to a top school and was given the financial means to attend by the school.
Many in the middle do not necessarily have stable incomes precluding them from ED as it appears to be a financial risk. My definition and what the college’s definition of affordability do not necessarily align. The issue is also that financial aid is revised yearly so its still a great unknown and hence a risk. Colleges would not do this if parents and applicants stopped playing into this.
Thousands of students have stopped playing. They are flocking to their in-state public schools and looking outside the top 50 to find affordability. Most people in the “middle” can pay something and depending on what the “something” is, there are many, many fine schools out there that can work.
@Eeyore123 That’s what I meant about missing deadlines, I guess. You would have to withdraw the application before getting the decision on the merit, so you really wouldn’t have a good picture on what you might have paid at the other school. You have to be comfortable with the number you got with the NPC to go with Early Decision. None of my peer group was able to do that for any of their kids. Every single person had to go with an option that did not result in a firm commitment.
Yes I agree many have stopped playing the game but many are playing it and it continues to thrive. We did not apply this time around to any private school.
It’s an arms race between applicants and colleges. The ED application is a response to the increasing use of the common app. When a student applied to 4-5 colleges at most, the smaller elite colleges rarely competed with other colleges (compared to public research universities, Ivies are pretty small, too), and their yield was pretty predictable. However, the common app changed that, since kids could apply to multiple colleges, and tended to focus on multiple “dream colleges” to the detriment of the small selective colleges, so the colleges created ED applications which allow them to again have a much more predictable yield.
Since the vast majority of students of the “elite” colleges have always been from the top 10%-20% by income (about 80% from the top 20%), they probably feel that focusing in this demographic to provide the large chunk of students who will stabilize yield makes sense. Moreover, the yield that the colleges want to preserve are particularly the kids who are receiving little to no FA, since those are the students who provide the financial basis for the college. That is why athletes are accepted ED - athletic ability is one of the ways that colleges increase the number of wealthy kid who are accepted to the elite colleges.
That is also likely why dissatisfaction with FA is the only real reason that withdrawing is permitted - ED are indeed aimed particularly at the higher income students, who cannot use this reason to withdraw. So the ED is not there to exclude low income students, but rather to keep high income students. Of course, the result is the same.