<p>Hi -</p>
<p>In “Early Decision,” are all rejected applications typically deferred to regular decision, or are some/many/most just rejected outright?</p>
<p>I think rejected apps in ED will not be considered in Regular pool. Only the deferred from ED will be brought into Regular but I heard it’s rarely accepted unless you send your end of first semester accomplishments or honors/awards.</p>
<p>Clarification – are ED applications ever rejected outright, or are there only two outcomes of ED: Admission and Deferral ?</p>
<p>Are most deferred applications from ED rejected in Reg Decission?</p>
<p>Hello amfreborg,
I believe Amherst’s 2011 numbers for ED were as follows:
Total ED applications: 495 = 100%
Total ED Accepted: 183 or 37%
Total ED Deferred: 196 or 40%
Total ED Denied: 116 or 23%</p>
<p>Think I got these numbers from the College Choice blog. I have no idea how many ED deferrals were accepted in RD, but I hope it’s a relatively high number.</p>
<p>regards,</p>
<p>lowdenf23c</p>
<p>Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the percentage of deferred applicants who wind up being admitted is, at least historically, very small. Last year my D applied ED and was deferred; her guidance counselor called the admissions office and was told that only five or six out of roughly 160 deferred applicants were admitted in 2010 as part of the regular decision process.</p>
<p>That’s the bad news. Here’s the good. If you’re good enough to be deferred by Amherst, you’re probably competitive everywhere. My D was ultimately rejected by Amherst (not even waitlisted) but admitted at Swarthmore, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Brown and Harvard (where she is a rising sophomore). </p>
<p>The extraordinarily low percentage of deferred applicants who are finally admitted does raise questions about the fundamental fairness of the ED process at Amherst. At other schools (e.g., Harvard and Yale) the percentage of deferred applicants ultimately admitted pretty much parallels the overall admissions rate. Amherst has a rep for encouraging athletes and legacies to utilize the ED process. What this means is that if you’re not an athlete or legacy the odds of ED admission are significantly less than the raw statistics would suggest. Amherst has been a pioneer in promoting economic and ethnic diversity in the admissions process, but their use of ED to advantage applicants who wouldn’t be competitive in the regular pool is something they need to come clean on.</p>
<p>^Claude, I wonder about your evidence that Amherst encourages athletes and legacies to apply ED? We all know that those hooks help raise the odds of being accepted, but I think that applies to both ED and regular applicants.</p>
<p>My evidence comes from a variety of sources, including conversations with several high school guidance counselors while my D was applying to college last year and posts on CC from recruited athletes. One of the best sources, however, was a pitcher on Amherst’s baseball team who I got to know last summer. We were discussing the college admissions process, since my D had just gone through it as well, and he was quite frank that he and most of his teammates had been actively encouraged to apply ED. I know this is anecdotal information, but my general impression is that many LACs, not just Amherst, use the ED process to advantage applicants who they want to admit but who wouldn’t be as competitive in the general admissions pool. And what this does is give a false impression to unhooked applicants that their odds of admission are better if they go ED. I’d be interested to hear what the Amherst admissions office says about this. If I’m wrong, I’d love to be corrected.</p>
<p>^I believe the larger, and more simple fact is that many selective LACs, Ivy League schools, and other selective colleges and universities are trending towards admitting a very large minority of their class to be enrolled through ED. Its not uncommon for these schools to be admitting 40% or more of their class, via ED. While many proffer a holistic admissions process, the process seems to be a functional, if not an objective of enrollment management. Admit 40% of your class by mid December, and then backfill via RD the remainder of the class. Enrollment tools remain, through deferred applicants, RD admits, wait-list, etc. all may be utilized for the school to ultimately enroll the number of students that the school needs to. Recall just a few years ago, a couple Ivy schools got away from doing ED because it was seen as unfair, and SCEA has since evolved. Now, ED, via SCEA, is back at these schools, and seems to be going full bore.<br>
Consider university resources involved in the admissions process.
That’s, in my mind, where the rubber meets the road. How a university recruits prospective students, rolls out communications, lines up admissions resources, and ultimately comes to enroll and close out a new class all have functional objectives, if not benchmarks to meet. A college can simply decide, “lets get as many legacy, athletic recruits, and other requisite admits out of the way via ED, SCEA and then use our enrollment tools and resources to back fill the remaining class in as efficient a way as possible”. And, please be realistic, the idea is to streamline and make processes more seamless, not more complicated, upon each iteration. When one sees a video of a brigade of smiling and happy students handing each other boxes of Harvard admit packets down a line to a postman who then loads them into a U.S. Mail truck, that speaks for itself as a timely and predictable process. Will RD go the way of record stores and the mom & pop pharmacy? Probably not, but for very selective schools
ED and SCEA makes their job a whole lot more predictable. And while some who have previously posted about the need “to come clean”, admissions at best is a flawed process, even stated as such by those who direct these same offices of admission.
Respectfully, Mr. VC</p>
<p>The admissions offices at most top LAC’s are very clear in saying that going ED doesn’t increase or decrease your chances. I know the percent admitted is higher for ED, but if applicants read anything into that (“I know the college says I don’t have a greater chance applying ED, but look at the stats!”), that’s not on the college. First rule of inference: don’t confuse correlation with causality, right?</p>
<p>Amherst is allowed to admit something like 65-70 recruited athletes. Some of these kids have high school academic records on par with the Amherst population as a whole, some are a notch below but are superb athletes. All are very good-to-excellent students. It is true that all athletes that a coach will be “supporting” to admissions are encouraged to apply ED. That way, a coach doesn’t expend admissions influence on an applicant only to see that recruit matriculate elsewhere. There were about 150 admits for the Class of 2015 in ED. If all 70 recruited athletes were among them (in fact, I think about 2/3 of supported athletes go ED and the rest go in RD), that leaves 80 spots for non-athletes. I don’t have stats on legacies for Amherst, but at Williams legacies were about 17% of the admitted ED pool for the class of 2015. Unlike supported athletes, legacies are given a leg up in ED, but are not virtually guaranteed admits.
When you take out athletes and legacies from the ED pool, the admit rate is probably somewhere around 15-20%–which is in line with (albeit slightly higher than) Amherst’s overall admit rate. The slightly higher rate is probably reflective of a pool that is slightly stronger than the overall pool.
I don’t see that the low number of deferred ED applicants indicates unfair practices, though. Disappointing, sure, but not unfair.
The comparison with early action at Harvard and Yale is specious. Those schools offer early action. I think they admit only the most obvious candidates in the early phase. Because there is a greater payback in terms of yield for schools offering early decision, it seems to me they might invest more in a complete evaluation of all applicants as if they were part of the RD pool.</p>
<p>This whole process feels quite awful, to be frank. </p>
<p>In Jan. my counselor talked to an admissions official about my deferal, and I was encouraged to retake my SATs … which I did … increasing my total score by 90.</p>
<p>In the past two weeks, I’ve seen all kinds of happy posts from students geting early write acceptances with scores 80 points below my INITIAL scores, which Amherst told my counselor were “marginal.” </p>
<p>My essays were very good, and I have done quite a bit of meaningful community work. I can’t believe the “amazing” essay stuff, so much as these decisions are are very subjective. Your application has to make you “liked.” </p>
<p>My growing impression is that “Highly Selective” means lottery if you’re not part of a desirable group, and is not objective.</p>
<p>The reason athletes are encouraged apply ED is not because they have subpar stats, but because coaches want to know what positions on their roster they have filled. If the pitcher applies ED and is admitted, he knows in December he’s got a pitcher in that class. If the pitcher applies RD and is admitted, the pitcher may decide to go elsewhere and the coach is left empty handed.</p>
<p>^Then “lefty” vs. “righty” pitching needs may influence a decision? I don’t think so. I believe your trustees would have an issue with this. Academics first. I know that there is a baseball tradition at Amherst, but I don’t believe contemporary gains are still being distilled out from that very historical collegiate first game. What you get is not going to fit your roster to the T. That’s why you have a coach, team leadership, and via skills development and maturation players adapt, adjust and hone their skills - perhaps beginning with sub-varsity. With a different sport, take a look at MIT hoops - smart ballplayers, no doubt, and a huge front court for a D-3, well-mannered, coachable, intelligent . . . it shows with the results.</p>
<p>amfreborg, please give this a listen, if you haven’t already</p>
<pre><code> Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR
</code></pre>
<p>RE NPR story … “je ne sais quoi.” ;-)P THAT explains it!</p>
<p>All I’ve got is 仁ねサイス …</p>
<p>mrvc–I was using baseball only as an example. The same holds true for any sport.</p>
<p>Before you get on a soap box and defend an indefensible process, I’d suggest you read an interview with Tom Parker, Amherst’s director of admissions, on Bloomberg a couple of years ago. In that interview, Parker admits that recruited football players have an average SAT in the 600s and hockey players sometimes dip into the 500s. Frankly, that’s shameful. Parker is quite honest that Amherst’s significantly lower standards for athletes (almost all of whom are recruited ED) result from alumni pressure to field competitive teams in those high-profile sports. When confronted by the fact that Swarthmore dropped football precisely because of the unfairness to unhooked general admission applicants, his response was simply (and lamely) “I don’t know how they can do that.”</p>
<p>What all this means, of course, is that if you’re an unhooked applicant Amherst’s advertised median SAT of 750 is completely meaningless, because in order to compensate for the hockey player with a composite SAT of 1600 unhooked applicants need to be closer to 2400 in order to be seriously considered. And that’s what I mean about needing to come clean. If Amherst acknowledged the realities of the ED process, there would be a lot less applicants. But, of course, that would hurt their USNWR ranking, so it won’t happen, the demands of transparency notwithstanding.</p>
<p>^No burn intended here. I know a number of NESCAC athletes, who play just about every sport except hockey. No disrespect, but D 3 hockey just can’t compare with D 1, and upcoming D 2 teams which have a unique way of attracting talent, and coaches who are moving up in the college ranks. A D 2 hockey All-American underclassman could transfer to a D 1 school, in an effort to go pro. And its not uncommon for a D 1 hockey coach to have a $200K salary and earn a portion for each ticket sold for a home game, sometimes in excess of a minimum attendance number. My point to you is a coach will have a group of players. How those players come together in practice, skill drills, position tryouts will determine where the player ultimately plays as well as a number of positions for which they are capable to play. You can have the best recruit, fastest player who always gets on base, but if he doesn’t hit or get on base, he will be out of the line-up. So the coach needs a plan B. You just want an appropriate number of players and you will allow walk-ons. Which is natural, as some student athletes wish to have a handle on their academics before they commit to a team. And some of these kids will out perform the “recruited” athlete. For baseball, yes, you should have a couple catchers should one get injured - but generally these kids are good athletes and play more than one position, gladly doing so if the team needs it. As you may know, running is a different story, sprinting, vs. mid-distance, vs. distance. A runner from my area was recently recruited by a NESCAC school (competes against Amherst) to run distance. The school was the only one that the runner applied to, and basically got in. The schools Naviance stats did not even list the runner as an admit, but simply as an applicant and an enrollment (1 - 0 - 1) applicant, admitted, enrolled). Still a senior, the runner has decent boards 2000, maybe a little higher, GPA is sub Nat. Honor Society standard, but not by much. I believe the sports are actually different, when it comes to building a team, and that is where a skilled coach, who is knowledgeable about conference rules, player and personal development, endeavors to build a strong performing team, as well as one with a character that the school and students can be proud of. Take care, Mr. VC</p>
<p>claudeturpin, thank you for finally putting into words what we all know is a terribly flawed process. I completely agree with you that the median SAT/ACT score of top LACs and Ivies is a misrepresentation. Who loses out? The student with that median score who really has no shot at the school. In about 2 weeks, my son, an unhooked applicant with SAT scores that fall right in the median range for all the top LACs and the “lesser” Ivies, will find out if that is true. The “holistic” approach to admission applies only to those applicants the admissions committees have to find a way to admit.</p>
<p>Eleanor: Best of luck to your son. My D was in a similar position statistically and is now happily enrolled at Harvard. The difference between the Ivies, on the one hand, and the top LACs, on the other, is that the Ivies (and Stanford) have larger entering classes, which means that the distorting impact of athlete/legacy preferences on the admissions process is diminished and unhooked kids in the median range really do get a more holistic look. That’s not to say the competition isn’t fierce, but in my D’s case her admissions officer wrote her a very nice letter after the initial decision came out saying that her ECs had been what swayed the admissions committee. I hope your daughter took a look at Swarthmore, because in my experience it’s the one top LAC with the courage to deemphasize the role of athletics in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Claude–you’re making some sweeping generalizations about athletes. What you say may hold true for the “helmet” sports, but for every lower than normal stat, the coach needs to find someone with high stats to equal that out. The Ivies do this too–it’s called the Ivy Index–try googling it. My own D, an athlete in a non-helmet sport at Amherst, was a NMF, had 700s across the board, and was admitted RD. We know many student athletes who were told there academics weren’t good enough–score higher–during the recruiting process.
The hard truth is these schools have so many applicants they can hand pick who they want to build their classes, and often, a student with a particular hook, whether that’s being a baseball pitcher or coming from Utah, is just more interesting than the many many students who, on paper, look much the same.</p>