<p>Harvard announced today that its non-binding early action admissions program will return this fall for the Class of 2016.</p>
<p>The program, which was eliminated in 2007 due to concerns that it posed a disadvantage to low-income applicants, will prohibit students from applying early to other schools, while being non-binding.</p>
<p>In 2006, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Virginia made headlines by announcing within weeks of each other that early admissions practices at their schools would end.</p>
<p>Less than two hours after Harvard revealed its plan to resume early admissions this morning, Princeton also announced its plans to restore the early admissions program. Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said in a statement that she believed that bringing back an early program would allow her school to better recruit underrepresented groups.</p>
<p>Wonder if this had anything to do with the number of applicants. Were their numbers down? </p>
<p>I knew they portrayed their no-ED decision as a concern for low income families, but when Harvard came to talk to students in our (wealthy) area and the question of “Why no-ED?” came up, their answer to this audience was “students need more time to decide where to apply”. I wonder how they’ll explain their motives now.</p>
<p>Of the top 10 in USNWR rankings
From 2016 (unless something changes)
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford all will have restrictive early action
Columbia, U Penn, Dartmouth and Duke will have early Decision
CalTech and MIT will have early action</p>
<p>Will this have an impact on number of admissions</p>
<p>The offers of admission have remained very stable for the Ivies, MIT, and Stanford. The biggest impact of HYPS being REA will be felt at schools that rely extensively on the crutches offered by the combination of ED and an extensive use of the waiting list. </p>
<p>Ultimately, one could expect an alignment to REA of all Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>Single choice Early Action and Restrictive early action are used to describe the same thing: Admission is not binding but you cannot apply to another school for Early Action/Early Decision. So I used the generic “restrictive” as they are restrictive at the end of the day.</p>
<p>I see that it is single choice - who does that help, exactly? For most students this makes applying to Harvard even more difficult. Most won’t be accepted during the early round and because they cannot apply elsewhere, will be left hanging until March, or left to the regular round, to feel as if they’ve already telegraphed that it’s not their first choice because they did not apply early. Binding, non-restrictive, such as Brown, is a bit better because at least students who are deferred would have already applied to other schools EA.</p>
<p>Yes, it will help Harvard and Princeton and Yale and Stanford. They can cherry pick the best students, especially those who want an early option and don’t want the anxiety of the regular round. Harvard clearly felt that it was missing out on the top students who wanted to commit early. No, it will not help most of the applicants who are competitive for those schools. Who can be confident that they’ll be competitive at a school with a <10% acceptance rate? The vast majority will be deferred and left with nothing but anxiety until March or April. Makes for a lot of unpleasantness during senior year.</p>
<p>It will help applicants who are competitive in the EARLY rounds for those schools. Most students in this category know who they are. Right now they end up having to choose between SCEA at Yale or Stanford (or MIT) even if they’d rather go to Princeton or Harvard. Now this pool of students will apply to whichever of these schools is their true first choice.</p>
<p>Stanford and Yale were both SCEA and are now joined by Harvard and Princeton. I suspect that Harvard and Princeton were losing some cross-admits to Stanford and Yale because those schools could really court their admitted students. The most that Harvard and Princeton could do is send out “likely letters”. They also likely lost a number of good potential candidates who never completed an applicaton because they were already admitted. Now the exceptionally high-achieving students will have to make a decison on applying EA (or ED) and where, and recognize that the “second-choice” school(s) may realize (or perceive) that they were not the applicant’s first-choice.</p>
<p>BTW, SCEA at Yale still allowed students to apply to state publics which had rolling admissions such as UMich. I suspect that Harvard and Princeton will do the same.</p>
<p>Well, what are the alternatives? Having the Ivy League and Stanford being ONLY Regular decison? Or only … Early Decision? </p>
<p>If everyone is RD, all students wait until April. If everyone is ED, they can only apply to one of the schools on a BINDING admission. If (or when) rejected, it’s back to RD. </p>
<p>All of us can speculate about Harvard’s motivation. When the attempt to orchestrate a collective dump of Early Admissions failed (despite the earlier claims by Yale,) it was only a matter of time for H to organize a new attack on the schools that cling to their ED. Now that HYPS is aligned, it will make ED a much more difficult decision for many applicants. </p>
<p>Can anyone blame Harvard for flexing its muscle? That is the prerogative that comes with being on the top of mountain!</p>
Who are these students? Athletes? Development? Legacies? These students already know precisely at which schools they are “competitive,” so it does not really help them. Do the truly tippy top academic non-athlete, non-urm, non-legacy students really feel that they have an edge anywhere? I think not. Most of them have some confidence that they’ll be accepted to a selective school, but at which school is anybody’s guess. Single action EA forces them to make a blind choice with the very likely outcome of a deferral with no early backup.</p>
<p>However, single action EA gives the school the opportunity to pick amongst these students. God forbid that Yale get first dibs on the tippy tops over Harvard.</p>
<p>Now that <em>all</em> the tippy tippy top schools have EA, these students do NOT have to make a blind choice. They can make an informed choice- they choose the school they would like to attend the most.</p>
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<p>No, in fact the restrictive nature of SCEA ensures that Yale won’t get applicants who would rather go to Harvard (and vice versa). And those who truly prefer Yale will not be crowded out by Harvard-preferring applicants.
This is a win-win situation.</p>
<p>^^I agree with vicariousparent. No one is making a “blind choice”…you choose, you apply. The colleges won’t be “competing” for students in the first segment of applications and the colleges know that the students they admit will attend.</p>