<p>^^BalletGirl,
I'm perfectly aware what their PR said. However can they come out saying their EA admitted pool is not as good from RDs? Since most legacies and recruited atheletes usually were addmitted in EA, certainly they can't say things like this. Because a statement like that sounds 'offesive'.
A university's ultimate goal is to recruite those truely talented and smart. Otherwise in a long run you lost your credibility....I've heard a few cases from our schools the realy 'smart'/'geniuse'/'unique' kids (who had took some courses in HP or having parents working there knowing very well about it) giveup HP going somewhere else.
IMO, now by inspect the whole applicants pool at one lump, it much easy (or have an excuse) for them to say to the legacy or celebrity "no, sorry, your kid's merit stats is too far bellow the board line." . Sure they will still give advantage to the legacy, etc. If its a boared line case.</p>
<p>My school is not necessarily competitive as a whole, but our top students always get into great universities. This year we had at least 2 Stanford SCEA, 3 Yale SCEA, 3 MIT EA, 3 University of Chicago EA, 1 CalTech EA, 1 Georgetown EA, 2 NYU ED, 1 Barnard ED, 1 Northwestern ED etc. But only deferrals/rejections for Brown ED, Columbia ED, Amherst ED, Tufts ED etc. It's interesting that this year, we had more EA applicants get in. While correlation does not equal causation, I'd say it's been a pretty interest year for the early round. And I'm sure the surges in applicants has somewhat to do with it. The Class of 2008 is very large.</p>
<p>Nobody in my school got in ED. There were deferrals at MIT and Cornell, and rejections from Stanford, NYU, Vassar, Columbia, and Cornell.</p>
<p>abcMom2,</p>
<p>While it is nice for you to be skeptical about their "PR" and to ascribe unseemly motives, I do not think it is the case that Harvard and Princeton gave up the early phase of admission because they were not getting qualified applicants. </p>
<p>It is the case that both Harvard and Princeton have used the time typically devoted to the early admission process this year to recruit aggressively from under-represented segments and, in Harvard's case, they made real, tangible and important changes to their FA policies -- putting their money, as it were, where their mouth is.</p>
<p>A lot of people at my school which is highly competative got in ED. We had 1 for Columbia, 1 Darmouth, 2 Cornell among other schools. However, our class genius got rejected from her top choice. One of our academic rivals had almost everyone deferred or rejected. Once again, it's a crazy year.</p>
<p>NJlaxfan169, of the 3 who got into Yale EA were 2 of them guys whose names start w/ J and 1 a girl whose name starts w/ P? and the Stanfordians were 2 guys (R and M)?</p>
<p>if so, I might go to your (central/easternish NJ?) school.</p>
<p>^^ That makes me laugh.</p>
<p>Things are probably a bit wonky for EA results because of the surge in the number of applications many schools seemed to have received. But for ED the numbers are much more stable from year to year because of the nature of the commitment. For instance, at Columbia the college takes 44% of its freshmen class ED and has done so for years. The difference is that, this year, there were a couple of hundred more ED candidates. While that means that there was more competition for the spots, it wasn't some huge change.</p>
<p>What we might be seeing is a broadening of the schools and environments from which these students come. It may be that students who attend high quality public, charter and private schools outside of the traditional feeder environments are getting more play in the process than ever before. In Arizona, where I live, for example, there have emerged high quality IB programs, math and science magnet schools, well-regarded charter schools, and a demographic shift where people are moving into the state with very high academic expectations and sending their kids to places beside private school. So far, the results at my D's high quality IB public school have been pretty decent compared to past years.</p>
<p>^^ I think that ED schools have seen an increase in the quality of this pool over time.</p>
<p>There weren't a couple hundred more ED candidates at Columbia. I read and article saying that it only increased by 1%.</p>