Starting to see a trend where schools use EA/deferral as a tool to see how serious student is about school and protect yield. thoughts?
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I don’t think there is a trend where schools use EA leading to a deferral as a tool to see how serious a student is about their school. I do think schools that consider interest may well defer EA applications for students whose interest in the school isn’t clear to the school as well as students who they want to place into greater context with mid-year reports and the rest of the application pool.
I do think a lot of people misunderstand their chances to be accepted in the EA round at highly selective schools that offer multiple admission rounds. Both their individual shot at admission as well as the fact that there have always been three possible answers for EA/ED applications: Accept, Deny, Defer.
Not liking the decision received doesn’t mean there is a conspiracy of yield management in a deferral. It means school wants to revisit the application; possibly in search of further demonstrations of interest, more academic information from the student, and/or greater context of the application as seen within the entire application pool.
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Yes, I agree.
There’s nothing new about EA. It’s been around for nearly 20 years now. Schools will do anything they can to protect yield, and that includes deferring applicants who they think are using their school as a safety, or waiting to see if “better” applicants come along.
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I don’t see this as a recent trend. Since EA is non-binding on the part of the applicant and binding on the part of the college (barring any huge falloff senior year) there is little benefit to a college to accept someone until that applicant is compared to others in the RD pool. In my S’s experience applying to a number of EA colleges a decade ago (anecdotal information, not a scientific study) the pattern seemed to be that most accepted EA applicants had shown interest in the college AND had qualifications clearly above those of a typical enrolled student. Other EA applicants were generally deferred.
FWIW my S was deferred EA and accepted in the RD round at the college he ultimately attended. We’ll never know if if applying EA was viewed as a positive in his application.
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I think that schools (there are a few) that don’t reject but defer all or high percentage of apps that are not accepted in EA have some incentive to do this - to falsely create a low admit rate since all the deferred apps are now counted in regular decision number of apps, same admission class size- would result in lower admit percentages, making their school seem ultra competitive to get in than it really is and prob also plays into the ranking calculations. When you have over 40,000 apps in EA and defer all or most of the apps, it’s highly unlikely they re-review all of them again on top of having to review all the new apps they get for RD.
While there are other schools -including many top schools that do not defer most of their EA but actually do deny apps that will not be accepted during RD. But only really defer the ones that have a chance to get in after mid year reports are submitted and/or comparing them to the rest of the Rd pool.
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“apps that are not accepted in EA have some incentive to do this - to falsely create a low admit rate since all the deferred apps are now counted in regular decision number of apps”
EA apps are RD apps with an earlier decision date.
ED is not, but those that are deferred are not counted twice.
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I’ve been thinking about this, and I realize that practically every school practices yield-protection—not in the traditional demonstrated interest sense per say—but, all colleges look for fit. They want to make sure that you’re the kind of student that matches the vibe of the overall student body, and if they accept you, you’re likely to come because you and the school match so well. For example, I know two people now who got into Stanford REA and were deferred at USC. They were very academically driven, to the point of published papers, research and developed applications/startups. It’s easy to think that since they were so accomplished, USC would want them—after all, USC is arguably a lower ranked school compared to Stanford in terms of research, faculty and whatnot. But, simply, these students weren’t typical USC students, no matter how many accolades they might have. From what I’ve seen, USC likes applicants who truly functioned like regular high schoolers—these students might’ve played a sport, danced, written for the school newspaper etc.; their activities don’t have to boast research in their desired major, and honestly, I feel like USC would prefer if they didn’t. Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that USC did not yield protect. You just weren’t the student they thought would thrive at USC, and conversely, they didn’t think USC could help you achieve your goals in a way other schools might.
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The number of EA application’s at many colleges skyrocketed during the fall of 2020 when many students were still in remote learning. Many rising seniors that summer did not have the demands of jobs they normally would have had, so they could consider completing more applications than usual. It was still unknown how many from the high school class of 2020 were deferring for the 20-21 school year which would impact how many could be accepted from the high school class of 21. This prompted more applications, too.
EA absolutely existed before this, but the norms went out the window at many selective and highly selective colleges. The trickle down is now colleges that were safety/likely options struggle to predict their numbers. They can not over enroll if it creates class scheduling issues and housing shortages. So they defer, too.
One outcome that I do hope shifts from these recent developments is changing the RD timeline for the selective and highly selective universities. Having just a month to make that final decision is too short for many families. Especially, if they have been sitting on EA acceptances for months. All of it could be moved up slightly to help support better decision making. ED could be earlier that Nov 1, EA could be as well. Then RD due dates that allow for a March 1 or 15 decision.
Not all. Open admission community colleges admit anyone… but even among non-open-admission colleges, there are many that admit anyone meeting basic stat (GPA, rank, and/or test score) requirements. I guess you could say that their version of “fit” that they are looking for is purely stat based.
Actually, they want the student to match the school well, but that may not necessarily be what people think. For example, if a college is known for a particular major or majors, what it sees as applicants that “fit” may be those who are interested in other majors besides the popular one that may be overloaded.
True, I should’ve clarified. I was talking about <50% acc. rate colleges. I majorly applied T30 so sometimes I get lost in my own bubble.