<p>There's an interesting thread on the Harvard forum about the results of ending early admission there. It seems to me that it might be worthwhile thinking about whether there is some other approach to early admissions that might be workable.
First, a few opinions:
1. Early admission has some benefits for students, because it allows them to apply to fewer schools (if they are admitted).
2. It has obvious advantages to schools, since they have a stronger indication of willingness to matriculate.
3. Early admissions, and especially ED, can disadvantage students with less money or less knowledge.
So here's my suggestion: First, there should be a consortium of colleges that agree to use the same early rules--no more figuring out who has EA, ED, SCEA, and all the permutations.
Second, there will only be EA, no ED. The twist is that each student will be limited to three EA applications.
This will give the schools a bit less assurance that the admittees will matriculate, but more than an unrestricted EA. It will give the students a bit more flexibility.
Thoughts?</p>
<p>Interesting...What about 3 EDs in the fall, and you have up to 2 weeks to chose ONE if you were accepted. It would encourage colleges to give best possible aide to those students during the ED round, in fear of losing those good candidates to other 2 schools. Now, if a student didn't get enough aide during the ED round, then he could apply to other schools during the RD round, and he could only get out of his ED acceptance if he could prove he got better aide from another school. We could ask Common Application provider to track students' application electronically. If students should use paper submission, schools could still enter their information into Common App database.</p>
<p>Hunt, I think in general your ideas are wise and well considered. </p>
<p>But I'd hate to see ED completely eliminated. It's the financial drawbacks of ED that feel problematic to me: I absolutely agree, no kid/family should be penalized for their financial situation. </p>
<p>The not-well-informed part feels different to me. It's not that I think kids/families should be punished or penalized for not knowing schools or themselves well enough to have a passionate first choice by October of senior year. It's more that for those rare kids who really do know for certain where they want to be, ED can be kind of a fitting reward. </p>
<p>Still, I get the financial aspect. Maybe what's needed is a third category: ED/f, under which a student could submit a limited number of other applications, with explicit language stating that if the student is accepted to the ED/f school, AND the ED/f school's financial package is better than or equal to any of the other schools, the student must and will matriculate there. There's a tacit (or I guess in some cases explicit) understanding that true financial mismatches are an acceptable out, from an ED agreement. But something like this would go further, in allowing the student/family to cast a wider net, and adding a little more transparency to the process.</p>
<p>Doesn't seem terribly workable, but it's the first thing that came to mind as a means of preserving ED.</p>
<p>oldfort, that sounds interesting too. (Your post went up while I was proofreading mine.)</p>
<p>It seems to me that my proposal would be just as advantageous to the student as the ED/f one: he's free to apply during RD and compare FA offers with no restrictions. What the schools get out of it is the assurance that the student didn't apply to more EA schools.</p>
<p>All the clamor to end binding Early Decision strikes me as completely backwards. The reality is that binding Early Decision is the only efficient part of the entire college admissions market. ED does a spectacular job of matching up customers who most want to attend a first-choice college with colleges who really want to have them. No muss, no fuss, one application.</p>
<p>If you believe, as I do, that the inability to self-select students and colleges leads to ten applications per student which totally destroys the effectiveness of the system, then the last thing we should do is get rid of binding Early Decision.</p>
<p>The whole financial thing is a red herring, based on the assumption that admissions deans are incompetent. Harvard has no early program this year. Does anyone really believe that Harvard won't miraculously manage to find the same half a freshman class that can write checks for the full sticker price? The same as they do every year? Will ending their early program make one iota of difference? No. Harvard's admissions office is staffed with highly skilled professionals. They'll get their class and about half of it won't need financial aid.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Maybe what's needed is a third category: ED/f, under which a student could submit a limited number of other applications, with explicit language stating that if the student is accepted to the ED/f school, AND the ED/f school's financial package is better than or equal to any of the other schools, the student must and will matriculate there. There's a tacit (or I guess in some cases explicit) understanding that true financial mismatches are an acceptable out, from an ED agreement. But something like this would go further, in allowing the student/family to cast a wider net, and adding a little more transparency to the process.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I actual practice, the only people "hurt" by binding ED are fairly affluent families who want to shop merit aid packages. Truly low income applicants are not hurt. They can apply ED and if the package isn't good enough, they just don't go.</p>
<p>ED is the least of the considerations for a family wanting to play the merit aid game. A much more fundamental decision is the concious choice to step down a couple rungs on the selectivity ladder to maximize merit aid discounts. Ending ED wouldn't change that.</p>
<p>We didn't have a problem with the way admissions currently are.
Didn't apply ED or EA, because not interested in any schools that had EA, and too dependent on aid for ED.
However, many schools have rolling admissions, which essentially works similar to EA I guess, because you still don't have an aid package until after you file FAFSA.
Rolling schools also don't seem to use PROFILE so that is a ^</p>