<p>Next year, Harvard and Princeton will reinstate early admissions programs. How will this affect applications to other top tier institutions?</p>
<p>Will 2012 be as rough a year in college admissions as 2011?</p>
<p>Here is my opinion.
Yale and Stanford will suffer a substantial loss in SCEA/REA applicants. Therefore, their acceptances will also drop, because their EA percentage should be about the same. It will be better for Yale/Stanford RD candidates, as more seats would be open.
As for Harvard and Princeton, it may be possible that EA applications will approach RD applications. Many seats will be gone in SCEA. So if you really love H or P, your best chance is to apply SCEA.</p>
<p>I am probably not apply to any of them, but mostly the other Ivies and top tiers, and am wondering about the trickle down effect. Could this potentially open up more spots at top but not HYPS schools that would otherwise have gone to the accepted applicants?</p>
<p>Also, I’ve heard that the past two years have been the largest high school classes, and next years graduating class is smaller…will that have an effect?</p>
<p>I feel that this will only really free up a few spots. Maybe 1k less applicants to top universities, once you take out all those accepted at H&P what would have applied to all the top schools. </p>
<p>I have heard the bit about a smaller senior class, BUT…how many of those kids are going to college? If you have less kids graduating, but more choosing to go to a 4-year college, you’ll be sitting on the same number of applicants.</p>
<p>Neither is actually reinstating something it had before. Harvard had early action but not single choice early action. Prineton never had early action only early decision. Don’t think much will change in application process. When Stanford and Yale had SCEA and Princeton stopped early decision, applications to Stanford and Yale SCEA went up but no more than was expected had Princeton kept early decision.</p>
<p>Very interesting. So basically, this move will only affect the very, very top applicants?</p>
<p>Also, will acceptance rates drop even further next year, or has selectivity “peaked” this year?</p>
<p>Any more comments?</p>
<p>I think the application numbers will go down all around. 5,257 people applied to Yale SCEA, 5,929 to Stanford, and 6,405 to MIT. This equates to 17,591 people that applied to a HYPSM school (excluding HP) for the Class of 2015. I personally do not believe there is a strong indication for people to give up applying ED to Ivies or other top schools for solely Harvard or Princeton. If people truly had their hearts set out on Harvard or Princeton as their top choice, they wouldn’t apply ED; they would ditch the ED option in favor of finding out from H/P in late March. In addition, Financial Aid applicants would not apply early decision to one of these schools, so the fact that SCEA is more agreeable with FA students’ plans does not play a large role in the increase of FA applicants that will apply there. Second, consider yield and overall application numbers. Of all the Ivies (except Dartmouth) and Stanford, Princeton has the lowest number of applications RD. MIT has less than Princeton, but MIT is self-selective and its applicant pool should be considered in a different light. Anyhow, what I’m saying is not that many students apply to Princeton RD as the other top schools that are in direct competition with it and not that many students end up choosing to go to Princeton once accepted. (It has like a ~60% yield or something) </p>
<p>So, hopefully my logic at this hour of the night is at least somewhat sound, using these numbers, there are 17,591 people who apply in the top school SCEA pool. We can bump this up to 25,000 to account for any increase/fluctuation, but, again, I don’t think there will be a significant jump in applications in the overall SCEA for HYPSM pool just because Harvard/Princeton reinstated it. If there are 5 HYPSM schools and approximately 20,000 applications, we can first divide the pool evenly amongst the 5. This is approximately 5,000 applicants per school SCEA. For the Class of 2015, Yale received 5,200 or so applications early, Stanford received about 6000, MIT received about 6,400. Readjust this, and I can definitely see Princeton receiving about 4,000 applications early, Yale 5,000, MIT 5,000, Stanford 5,000, and Harvard (at least) 6,000. I think my numbers are kind of off but to make it more abstract and reasonable… 1. Harvard will receive the most apps by far. 2. Stanford and MIT and Yale will follow in numbers, but MIT could very well lose out A LOT to Harvard early on, making it below Stanford and Yale in numbers. 3. Princeton will definitely receive the lowest number of apps early. Don’t get me wrong - I’m going to apply to Princeton SCEA and I absolutely love the school. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking, but I don’t really see Princeton receiving a huge surge in applications early on compared to the other schools, especially with its low yield rates and taboo reputation of having grade deflation.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Well???</p>
<p>welllllllllllll</p>
<p>wellllllllllll</p>
<p>u really seem to have done your research! i am lately considering Princeton SCEA and i am dearly wishing what you are wishing-- that princeton is easier to get into compared to other hyps. I’m no expert, but ur reasoning seems to have be about 30% based on facts and 70% wishful thinking. i don’t think Princeton would be significantly easier to get into than the others, but i do agree that it might be slightly easier. No one at my high school has ever gotten in harvard, yale, MIT, or stanford, but this one girl got into Princeton a few years back. So, maybe.</p>