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<p>The reality is that for schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton - for those that are not recruited athletes or legacies there is really no advantage to applying early than applying regular decision.</p>
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<p>wrong. the authors of "the early admissions game" controlled for these hooks, and still found a huge advantage - equivalent to more than a hundred points on the old SAT - to applying early.</p>
<p>I just hope Princeton doesn't. (I'm gonna try for Princeton ED)</p>
<p>We feel that if anybody is going to step up and take the lead to try to get rid of something which is really doing more harm than good in high schools across the country, its us, Bok said. </p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p>Yale's President Richard Levin has long been on record advocating the eventual elimination of all early admissions programs.</p>
<p>I think Yale will probably wait to see how this goes for Harvard. If it goes well, Yale won't be far behind. I expect Stanford and MIT to do the same. </p>
<p>Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of the early admissions programs.</p>
<p>F. Scottie. I too read that book, but the admissions picture has changed since it was published in 2003. The book is based on statistics from 1999-2001. It is a different admissions situation 5-6 years later. There are more college entrance age students now than at any other time in US History. With the common application now being used by hundreds of universities including most of the ivy league, admission applications have jumped.
What the book does say that still holds true is that elite colleges fill almost half of their class with early applicants. It is true that if an elite school accepts 1600 applicants and 800 of them come from the early pool and the applicants are competing with just 4,000 other applicants, and the regular pool has 20,000 applicants competing for the same number of spots, that the school fills almost half of their applicants from the early pool. (most take 1/3 of the class early and defer another group and take others later, thus half come from the early pool). The situation however is that today the early pool is made up of a significantly large number of legacies who know they need to apply early to get the advantage, and recruited athletes.
You can do the math and see why the book no longer holds true. If an elite school for example has 10% of legacies in a given class, you know that 3/4 of them had to apply early (most schools will only give a legacy advantage to those who apply early). If for example a school has a class size of 1800, and 180 of them are legacies, it is likely that at least 150 of them were in the early pool. This means that if a school like princeton accepts 600 early, 150 of them could be legacies. Added to that, a school like Princeton has 15% who are recriuted athetes. Assuming that at least half of those recruited athletes were accepted early (Princeton routinely accepts their athletes early and encourages them to apply early and athletes have to commit to school teams), that means that of a class size of 1800 (this is just an imaginary size), 250 of them may be recruited athletes. That means that at least 125 of them are probably recruited early. That means that between legacies and recruited athletes 275 of them may be given spots in the early pool. If a school like Princeton accepts another 125 of the early applicants who are enginners, that could be 400 spots of the 600 available for the early pool.
The book you are referring to is outdated. It was printed before Single Choice Early Action, and before this frenzy in college admissions.</p>
<p>Before we applaud Harvard for great moral courage, let's not forget that they're doing it, according to The Crimson, for a 2-3 year "trial" period. Let's also not forget that Harvard, which has a keen instinct for self-preservation and self-promotion, wouldn't do this if it thought it'd get significantly hurt. It figures it's still going to get the lion's share of ultra top students, and it probably will. Its decision smacks of the rich man who takes a convenient moral stand. By the way, out of interest, how many times has Harvard changed its admissions policies in the last decade or so?</p>
<p>Nonetheless, leave it to an old-time Yankee like Derek Bok to do what has at least the semblance of the right thing. He has decent instincts, even if buttressed by Harvard's wealth and prestige.</p>
<p>It speaks volumes to Harvard's progressive attitude on admissions. When the prototype for American privilege and entitlement makes the first move in what some are calling a petition for equity, it raises a few eyebrows. That being said, it appears that the decision will have wide-ranging consequences for the existing process. The Boston Globe article made it clear that Presidents Levin (Yale) and Bacow (Tufts) have been strong critics of early admissions programs in the past. The press release made it known that Harvard has been in talks with other schools. I think it's fair to expect major changes from members of the Ivy League and similar universities. At the end of day, when Harvard speaks everyone listens.</p>
<p>How many people do you personally know who got into Harvard or Yale SCEA early this past year who were not legacies, development cases whose families gave significant money, or athletes recruited to play on one of the sports teams. Unless from an elite feeder school to Harvard in Mass, or one in Connecticut, ie. Deefield or Choate for example, the number you personally know is probably small.
The book winning at the Admissions Game is based on statistics that are outdated and do not reflect the current admisisons frenzy of 2006 and 2007 where there are more college entrance age applicants than at any other time in U.S. history, and elite colleges have seen a 22% increase in applications many over just the past year with almost all elite colleges now accepting the common application which makes applying to colleges easier than ever before.
Also, since that book was written, yield has been eliminated as one of the factors in the US news college ranking.
Yes, elite colleges do fill almost half of their class from early applicants, but the early applicants are comprised in great numbers of recruited athletes and legacies and development cases. The early applicants who are not in these categories are stronger overall than applicants in the regular pool which is comprised of strong applicants but also a large number of applicants who really are not strong candidates but throw in one more common application just to see.
When the authors of the book you refer to made adjustmets for legacie and athletes they were generalizations, and do not reflect the real picture today and the current trends in recruiting athltes. In addition five or six years ago legacies might have applied in the regular admission pool. Today they understand that in this extremely competitive application frenzy they will not be given that advantage unless they apply early. Similary elite colleges cannot offer athletic scholarships to recriuted athletes. They fear losing them to other schools that can. They thefore encourage them to apply early and get them to sign and commit to a team. Even though admission is not binding for SCEA at Harvard and Yale, it is really binding for athletes because they often sign that they will not go with another team at another school. This is a way that ivy league can assure a good team.
One other thing about elite college admissions. The better the SAT scores the least skilled the athlete needs to be. Many schools are allowed to take a certain number of athletes at the low SAT range, middle and high. Thus, Harvard and Yale can take as can Princeton many athletes with uncompetitive SAT scores if they take some with very high ones to balance out the average of the team. Thus, a superior athlete with low scores can get in. These are all in the early pool.
The real truth ist hat the early bird gets the worm at schools one notch down where students who are not of the same caliber of those applying to HYP early "reach" to get in. Not at schools like Harvard and Yale</p>
<p>The question is, how will this move by Harvard affect other Ivy and highly selective schools (Stanford, Mit, etc.)?</p>
<p>I think this is a good decision. By applying SCEA to one Ivy in hopes of improving his chances there, it seemed to us that our S may have instead hurt himself at comparable schools. We think this because several interviewers mentioned his decision, saying things like "So I see you've applied SCEA to ________." He of course had never told them that, but there must be a national list the admissions folks have access to since they seemed to know anyway. (There must be a list in order to keep all the SCEA students honest about only making that one choice.) Since he didn't ultimately get into that EA school, we felt he might have shot himself in the foot by indirectly "publicly" declaring that the EA school was his first choice. The others schools could not help but deduce that they therefore weren't his first choice, which might have caused a loss of enthusiasm on their part.</p>
<p>Also, college counselors seem to unanimously advise against applying ED if the student will require financial aid. So there may be something to the thought that the ED policy could disciminate against the disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Let's remember that Derek Bok, <em>interim</em> president (and yes, former president too) of Harvard, initiated this move. (At least that's what was reported on Boston's NPR station this morning.) Things could very well change when a new president is installed.</p>
<p>The net effect will be zero. Given non-binding EA at most of these places, Harvard will, as usual, win the yield battle on May 1.</p>
<p>How will this affect recruiting? I suspect the number of likely letters might increase. Also senior year grades will be more important. .</p>
<p>I dont get why EA is bad? It allows applicants to show their #1 choice AND it allows for the disadvantaged to compare financial aid between their EA school and those they apply to during regular.</p>
<p>Is there a difference between the EA pool of applicants and the RD pool? My guess is that the RD pool may be stronger academically. </p>
<p>Anyway, eliminating EA is fairer imo because it gives a better chance for applicants to apply to Harvard, to take the standardized tests and better acquaint them with the college application process without being penalized for not applying early.</p>
<p>Applicants can show their #1 choice anyway. They don't need EA or ED to do that.</p>
<p>So if Harvard uses more likely letters to athletes and other hooked applicants, it might end up close to the situation it has now.</p>
<p>"there must be a national list [of SCEA applicants] the admissions folks have access to"</p>
<p>AHHH! Wait, if one applies harvard scea, do any other colleges find out?? will an admissions officer from some school know where i applied early?</p>
<p>I think that SCEA is a strong way for students to demonstrate interest. Despite what many on this board think, EA doesn't favor anyone except those who have it all together in time to apply early. It favors people who are prepared and who have put thought into the process. Note that this is not an exclusive domain of the wealthy and elite.</p>
<p>Students love EA and ED because it takes the stress off of them as early as December. I know I would have been sweating out the spring if it wasn't for EA.</p>