Our daughter applied EA to Northeastern last year and pulled her app before EA acceptance was granted due to acceptance to her ED school. She had “proof” of pulling her app - yet somehow Northeastern sent her a deferral for EA and then accepted her in the RD round with a very large merit scholarship - so the merit money can come after a deferral.
She dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s with her withdrawal of her app and so did her school’s college counselor - both before the EA decision and after the EA decision came out showing her still in their system - somehow her app slipped through their system.
Basically long story - to say merit does come in that round
Agree that there is no benefit to the school from cutting applications, so they will continue to offer as many flavors/rounds of decisions as makes sense for them.
More apps is not only about prestige and rankings. It also generates more $ to run the admissions department, which can translate into better staffing, more outreach and marketing. That can improve the school’s perception over the long term in a number of ways. I am sure that the schools will also argue that this process helps them net a wider range of diverse applicants too.
I actually am referencing persons we actually know, not listed on a discussion board. We live in a resource rich area in Northern Virginia. It really lends to the narrative that a high number of applications may have been deferred because there were simply too many EA applicants. I definitely am supportive of opportunities for first generation and economically diverse applicants though. I am the first to admit my kids have unlimited support and I realize others are not that lucky. More importantly, my kids feel the same way. Are they disappointed, yes, but they know the importance of access for underserved communities.
In the end, if you get what you were promised, then you can’t complain.
If you were told you can be accepted, denied or deferred, then they held up their end of the bargain.
As a consumer, if the offering doesn’t meet your need, don’t consume.
If Clemson states they don’t defer, that’s different.
But they state that they do.
This may be advantage to the student too. Maybe they mis calculated and realize they might not get in and they take advantage of the many schools that offer later deadlines and apply to another one or two safeties - just in case.
Agreed - I suspect that (at least for some colleges) EA is a marketing scheme/mental game they play with applicants. It might drive up application numbers because some kids/parents will be so anxious to have at least already SOME acceptance in the bag, that they send some extra applications to EA schools that were not included on their RD list.
For the college it’s no risk - they’ll accept the cream that would have been offered admission anyway, and defer most to their RD pool, that is now larger than it would have been without having dangled the EA in front of anxious students/parents.
As far as the students/parents - other than the (obvious!) mental blow, there is no back-fire as far as admission chances.
I think EA benefits schools in other ways too- I have seen kids apply ea for a what they consider a safety, but then they get that early acceptance and start picturing themselves there, maybe visit- start looking at the school’s social media and suddenly that school becomes much more of a contender than it would have been if it had come alongside their other acceptances.
A point that was brought up in the oral arguments to the Harvard affirmative action case was that Harvard tried to get the AA class formed mainly by the Harvard version of ED but it backfired. They actually had fewer AA admits because that population couldn’t do early applications and because they needed the ability to compare FA offers. Those applicants didn’t want to make the decision in early fall and just wanted to think about it.
Maybe other schools are finding that the EA pool is not a good mix (financial, academic, geographic) from which to form a class. For public schools, there may not be enough OOS applicants, not enough engineers, not enough low income (or whatever factors that school is looking for). The ED/EA (or whatever it is called) may work for Princeton but not really for Clemson if Clemson knows its EA pool varies more from year to year, or if some departments aren’t ready to evaluate the pool, or the high schools in the state can’t get the info over fast enough for EA.
High Stat kids, and their families, can reduce the stress and strain of college admissions any time they choose. No one is under any obligation to apply to the most highly rejective schools. And no one applying will only find their people (and challenging classes) at a select few colleges only.
There are plenty of very good to great schools that aren’t highly rejective, that have excellent academics and fantastic outcomes with their students. What they don’t have is the name/brand recognition so many seem to place an oversized priority upon.
Students and their families are truly in the driver’s seat when it comes to deciding where to apply. You have total control of the process at that point. You don’t have to follow the ‘highly selective’ herd, and then complain about feeling like you were led to slaughter.
My high stats son applied EA where it was available, so far it has been 3/3 accepted. He did not apply ED as merit and the overall financial package is important to us. Son has worked very hard to complete most of his apps by mid-October. While the acceptances have given son some affirmation that his hard work is paying off, he knows it is a very competitive environment. He is a smart kid- but, no hooks. Getting in is just the first hurdle. I wish the merit awards/financial aspect came with the initial acceptances. Ultimately, we will not be making a decision until all decisions/financial packages come in March.
One of the schools my daughter is applying to is largely BECAUSE they have an EA option. We knew that she would not apply ED anywhere for financial reasons, but I wanted her to have something to tide her over in December because I knew she’d be jealous of her classmates’ early acceptances. It’s a school that we might not have considered if they only had ED/RD options because she already has good safeties on her list, but EA made it much more appealing and maybe even a viable option.
My daughter did this for the same reason. To me wasted effort and $$ as she had zero intention of attending. But from a stress POV they see it as worth it. So I get it.
Actually there is some benefit. By reducing the number of applications, the school can spend more time on each application and more thoroughly evaluate all its applicants.
I’d argue that’s a benefit to the school as well. By more carefully evaluating its applicants, the school can help admit a better incoming class, which ultimately helps the school’s reputation.
Paying minimum or near minimum wages to hire more admissions readers may let the school process more applications, but it wouldn’t help the school create a better incoming class.
In my business we react. Right now car sales are hot. There’s no inventory. Customers pay over sticker. So we don’t slip any money to dealers behind the scenes.
There will be a slowdown. We will be stuck with inventory. And we will be playing from behind because we will react instead of being proactive. In other words we’ll incent dealers after we see an issue and not before.
My guess is a school does the same. Look another way - get 5k apps. Admit 2500. 500 attend. 20% yield.
Get 4k APs. Admit 2k. At 20% you have 400.
Your points are valid and you may be correct. I may be wrong. But I see schools, even top ones, begging for more, not less.
If they admitted less they better have dang good marketers bcuz they’d need to flip those prospects into paying customers.
If they admitted the same on less apps, then they likely watered down the class.
I think in general businesses are reactive. And you are proposing proactivity.
Fair point and again while I disagree I may be off kilter. But just my take.
Back to original topic. Here’re some of my thoughts:
For publics, EA is worthwhile because their admissions generally tend to rely more on criteria (such as grades and test scores) that can be automated to reduce the large number of applications they receive in relationship to their staffing levels.
Few privates offer EA (unrestricted or restricted) alone (i.e. no ED). Depending on the school, EA may or may not be beneficial to an unhooked applicant.
For the privates that offer both EA and ED, EA generally offers no benefit (unless the applicant is strongly hooked) and may even be detrimental in some cases.
One caveat might be to listen to what the admissions office at each school you are interested in says. For instance, my son is applying to Clark. During the summer open house, the admissions director recommended that students apply EA if at all possible. She said they recognized that many people were unable to commit to ED, and that the admissions department looked on EA favorably. (It was not clear to me whether she was saying it was better than neutral compared to RD, or equivalent, but she emphasized that it was not worse.)
