<p>I don't have any beef with Princeton admitting 48% of its class ED. What I have a beef with is the hypocrisy of that viz-a-viz the press releases denouncing the equity of it followed by again admitting half the class that way.</p>
<p>For example, Swarthmore admits 40% of its class ED. They make no bones about it. They outline the reasons for doing so, the benefits to the college. And, that they have no intention of changing the policy. Just be intellectually honest about it.</p>
<p>These are probably very well qualified candidates who picked Princeton as their first choice. Maybe they correctly "gamed" the system this year, right Interesteddad? ;) So what? I'm sure they have stellar stats. Good for them. And good for the University.</p>
<p>hoedown is right. The numbers from last year are very close. I see nothing disingenuous at all!</p>
<p>"Nationally, seniors sent approximately the same number of early applications as they did last year, especially at Princeton University. “We had 2,276 applications for early admissions for next year’s class and we admitted 597,” said Cass Cliatt, Princeton University’s official spokeswoman. “Last year 2,236 applications and 599 admits.”"</p>
<p>There is a difference between a large school picking half its class ED and a smaller one doing the same thing - one has a larger number of seats left open for RD. Even if the odds are lower in RD, it might not feel that way.</p>
<p>Has no one connected the announcement that Princeton is shutting down its ESP lab to their decision to suspend ED? The ED program was one of the experimental variables. Without the lab, there's no reason to continue with ED. <strong><em>just kidding</em></strong></p>
<p>What is arguably disingenuous -- I don't think that word is especially apt -- is saying "We're terminating our ED program because it's the right thing to do" while continuing to operate unchanged an ED program which is pretty much the worst of its kind. </p>
<p>Look at the difference in admission rate: The admission rate for ED applicants will be more than 400% of the admission rate for RD applicants. At Harvard and Yale, that figure is 200%. So unless you believe Princeton's ED applicant pool is somehow vastly more qualified than Harvard's SCEA pool, you have to conclude that Princeton intends to give more of a boost to the portion of its applicant base more likely to apply ED -- which means richer.</p>
<p>And which is more fair?: Accepting fewer kids from the ED pool, deferring more, and letting them compete with the RD applicants for more slots? Or continuing the relatively heavy thumb on the scales for ED kids because the ED kids feel they're entitled to it?</p>
<p>Am new to all this, but---
When did they make the announcement that they were going to end early decision? Were there some students already planning to apply ED this year? If so, that's probably why they kept it one more year.
Next year, there will be no ED, and that will be that, correct?
Do they plan to use EA, or just RD?</p>
<p>I really don't see what the issue is here. Princeton decided that its ED program was unfair and eliminated it for next year. By the time it made that decision, a lot of students in the class of 2011 had already have made their decisions about where to apply early based on old statistics. Altering the admissions process for students who had already committed to applying for that year would have been unfair to those students. I don't know exactly when this decision was made, but I know that if Princeton had drastically reduced the number of ED admits in my year without announcing that they intended to do so, I would have felt that I had applied under false pretenses.</p>
<p>
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I don't know exactly when this decision was made, but I know that if Princeton had drastically reduced the number of ED admits in my year without announcing that they intended to do so, I would have felt that I had applied under false pretenses.
[/quote]
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<p>Why? Princeton was clearly your first choice, so what difference does the ED acceptance rate make? You would have been less interested if it had a smaller ED acceptance rate? It's either your first choice or it's not.</p>
<p>I get what she's saying. She applied ED to Princeton and in turn DIDN'T apply ED or EA elsewhere. If Princeton had just changed the way they did ED from previous years, she could have missed out on other opportunities without knowing (perhaps Princeton was tied for first on her list with another school with ED).</p>