<p>Just heard a news item this morning in Boston stating that Harvard has announced they are eliminating early action/early decision as an option for the application year beginning next fall. The reported stated that Harvard has determined that EA/ED disadvantages low income students and will no longer participate in this practice</p>
<p>Here is the full article you are talking about:
<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/09/12/harvard_to_end_early_admission/%5B/url%5D">http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/09/12/harvard_to_end_early_admission/</a></p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Great decision by Harvard.</p>
<p>So does that mean everybody will have to wait until after the new year begins to apply? (not this application year but the next) How is this going to effect athletic recruiting? I'm a little confused...</p>
<p>WOW. that's so .... interesting. Ha.</p>
<p>This year is not affected. The decision is for the 2008 freshman year.</p>
<p>UNC-CH did this in 2002, but then again I don't suppose they're an "elite" university.</p>
<p>Harvard Ends Early Admission, Citing Barrier to Disadvantaged </p>
<p>By ALAN FINDER and KAREN W. ARENSON
Published: September 12, 2006
Harvard University, breaking with a major trend in college admissions, says it will eliminate its early admissions program next year, with university officials arguing that such programs put low-income and minority applicants at a distinct disadvantage in the competition to get into selective universities.</p>
<p>Getting in Early Harvard will be the first of the nation’s prestigious universities to do away completely with early admissions, in which high school seniors try to bolster their chances at competitive schools by applying in the fall and learning whether they have been admitted in December, months before other students. </p>
<p>Some universities now admit as much as half of their freshman class this way, and many, though not Harvard, require an ironclad commitment from students that they will attend in return for the early acceptance.</p>
<p>Harvard’s decision — to be announced today — is likely to put pressure on other colleges, which acknowledge the same concerns but have been reluctant to take any step that could put them at a disadvantage in the heated competition for the top students. </p>
<p>“We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged,’’ Derek Bok, the interim president of Harvard, said yesterday in an interview.</p>
<p>Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvard’s students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.</p>
<p>Mr. Bok also spoke about reducing the frenzy surrounding admissions. “I think it will improve the climate in high schools,” he said, “so that students don’t start getting preoccupied in their junior year about which college to go to.’’ </p>
<p>Many admissions deans and high school guidance counselors greeted Harvard’s decision — which is to go into effect for applicants in the fall of 2007 — with astonishment and delight.</p>
<p>“Wow, it’s incredible,’’ said Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has a nonbinding early admissions program.</p>
<p>Ms. Jones has spoken widely about reducing the pressure and stress of admissions. “It has the capacity to change a lot of things in this business,’’ she said. “It’s bold enough for other schools to really reconsider what they’re doing. I wish them so much luck in this.’’</p>
<p>Lloyd Thacker, the executive director of the Education Conservancy, a nonprofit group created to lobby for an overhaul in admissions procedures, said his eyes had teared up when he heard the news. “I’m so glad,” Mr.Thacker said. “I can’t believe it.’’</p>
<p>“The most powerful institution in the country is saying, singularly, yes, something is wrong with this and we’re going to try to act in the public interest,’’ he added. </p>
<p>The University of Delaware announced a similar move last May.</p>
<p>For three decades Harvard has offered a particular form of early admissions, in which students who are accepted early still have the freedom to go elsewhere. Various forms of early admissions are offered by hundreds of colleges and universities, with many requiring applicants to commit upfront to attending the university if offered early admission.</p>
<p>The popularity of the procedure grew significantly in the 1990’s, as colleges tried to increase their competitive advantage by locking in strong candidates early. It also gave an edge to students willing to commit early to an institution. In some cases admissions rates are two or three times higher for students who apply early.</p>
<p>But at Harvard and many other universities officials have grown concerned that early admissions present a major obstacle to low-income and working-class students. Such students have also been hurt by steep tuition increases and competition with students from wealthy families who pour thousands of dollars into college consultants and tutoring.</p>
<p>“I think there are lots of very talented students out there from poor and moderate-income backgrounds who have been discouraged by this whole hocus-pocus of early admissions by many of the nation’s top colleges,’’ said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s dean of admissions and financial aid.</p>
<p>Mr. Thacker and other critics said that under binding early admission programs, students have to commit to a college long before they know how much aid they will be offered. Students who apply for admission in the regular cycle are able to compare financial-aid offerings from various colleges before making up their minds in April.</p>
<p>Getting in Early Under Harvard’s early admissions program, which is known as early action, students do not have to decide until May 1 whether to accept an admission offer. Even so, many potential applicants did not understand the distinction between Harvard’s program and those that require an upfront commitment and were discouraged from applying, Mr. Bok said.</p>
<p>“We think the more schools abandon this process, the healthier the admissions process will be,’’ he said.</p>
<p>Of the 2,124 students admitted by Harvard last year, 813 were granted early admission, or 38 percent, Mr. Fitzsimmons said.</p>
<p>Under Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard president who left office in June, the university took a number of steps to make itself more accessible to poor and working-class students. Among other things, families with incomes below $60,000 a year are no longer required to pay for a students’ education.</p>
<p>The idea of abandoning early admission was developed after Mr. Bok became interim president in July, said John Longbrake, a Harvard spokesman. Early admission will remain in effect in the current academic year, which is already under way.</p>
<p>Several educators said only a university with Harvard’s reputation could take the risk involved with eliminating early admission because it will continue to be the first choice for so many top students.</p>
<p>“The one thing that always seemed commonly agreed was that no college could give up its early application program if the others didn’t, too,” said Christopher Avery, a Harvard professor and a co-author of “The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite” (Harvard University Press, 2003). “This seems to move to do just that.’’</p>
<p>Bruce Hunter, director of college counseling at the Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s School, a private school in Salt Lake City, said he hoped other universities would follow Harvard’s lead, but he was not confident they would.</p>
<p>“I think that Harvard has calculated that they will not suffer any competitive disadvantage in the process,’’ Mr. Hunter said. “I’m not sure that there are more than a handful of other places that could make the same claim.’’</p>
<p>Janet Lavin Rapelye, dean of admission at Princeton University, applauded Harvard’s decision, but said she could not predict how Princeton might respond. Princeton has binding early admission, and Ms. Rapelye said there had been questions about whether early admissions limited diversity. </p>
<p>“All of us who sit in these seats have always worried about that,’’ she said. “Yet we have worked very hard to broaden and deepen our applicant pool at every step in the process.’’</p>
<p>The above is from the NY Times front page -- Will it change things much? Look at what Janet Rapelye of Princeton said at the end of the article. It will definitely generate discussion and controversy or it may be just a gratuitous gesture on Harvard's part, but as is well know, Early Decision is rather entrenched in the college admissions system and is, for the most part, to the colleges' advantage. It'll be interesting to see if a herd or lemmings mentality will take over now that Harvard has leapt (after Delaware and UNC, as noted). In the increasing competition for top students and top dollars, why would schools give up something that has benefited them so well so far? In trying to make the admissions game "a fairer process," Harvard may be not unlike the ancient Greek who, while he could have afforded finer clothes, wore rags as a sign of his humility, when in fact he was announcing his vanity. It'll take a few years to see how all of this plays out, but in the meantime, today's high school seniors will be applying as early applicants and are now scrambling to assemble their applications by November 1st.</p>
<p>"So does that mean everybody will have to wait until after the new year begins to apply? (not this application year but the next) How is this going to effect athletic recruiting? I'm a little confused..."</p>
<p>No. This means that they are eliminating the ability for some students to be admitted earlier. This in no way means that you can't still apply in November, it just means that the advantage that you have by being able to get a decision early is eliminated. </p>
<p>Sounds like a good idea all the way around. Any school at this caliber can afford to do this. The supposed loss in money or first caliber student doesn't decrease for them. I would expect other schools at this level will follow suit. Those schools on the cusp, will still do all that they can to lure good students to their schools.</p>
<p>Am I the only one that thinks that Harvard's rationale for its decision makes no sense?</p>
<p>So EA disadvantages the poor students who aren't smart enough to understand the difference between ED and EA? If they can't understand the application materials, what makes anyone think they are qualified for Harvard?</p>
<p>Oh, UNC-CH still has EA. It just eliminated ED some years ago.</p>
<p>EA is a problem for many poor students because in many inner city schools, the students are totally unaware that there is an advantage to EA and SAT's aren't usually taken in time to apply early. This isn't just conjecture - my wife teaches in an inner city school and there is a real disadvantage to the amount of info that these students receive.</p>
<p>If someone is planning on applying to Harvard, I think s/he can be assumed to be more than a passive receptor of information from a bad high school and is capable of doing some research.</p>
<p>EA is not some big secret. Go on the internet, look at college application books at the public library, look at the college applications themselves -- it is all spelled out. (I went to the equivalent of my mid-sized city's "inner city" school. Anyway, kids from everywhere else in the state always asked me, "Aren't you afraid to go there?" I got zilch in the way of guidance there and my parents didn't know about colleges either. I went to the library and researched.)</p>
<p>I sympathize with the plight of those who aren't getting good information. But then, wouldn't the best solution be to undertake to improve the information they are getting? And the issue isn't what all the students are being told by the high school -- it is whether strong candidates happen to know of the existence of EA. How would your wife know this without interviewing them?</p>
<p>Are qualified low-income students applying to Harvard RD NOT getting in, while they would have gotten in if they HAD applied early? My understanding is that EA acceptance rates are higher because the average qualifications are higher and that qualified low-income students are snapped up whenever they apply because schools want to be more diverse.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to be difficult. I just can't help but wonder if Harvard has some other reason to be dropping EA.</p>
<p>There's another thread on this topic in the Parent's Forum. BTW, DianaR, right on about if they can't understand the application materials, what would make anyone think they're qualified for Harvard?!</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>I sympathize with the plight of those who aren't getting good information. But then, wouldn't the best solution be to undertake to improve the information they are getting?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Sure, but often the problem is you don't know what you don't know. How do you know in the first place to go out and research something that you have no knowledge of?</p>
<p>Are qualified low-income students applying to Harvard RD NOT getting in, while they would have gotten in if they HAD applied early?</p>
<p>I think a better question is what the article alludes to, which is, "Are any qualified low-income students not applying AT ALL, SOLELY because they were unaware of EA?" That's a somewhat ludicrous question, but based on the article, that's the assumption on which harvard's decision is based.</p>
<p>I think it's clear that ED discourages low-income applicants (and furthermore, I'm not sure I would've gotten in where I did if it weren't for ED, so i'm a little embarassed), but this doesn't mean EA is a worthless yield tool for adcoms. EA has a number of advantages associated with it too, and chief among them is the possibility of preventing:
- a student from spending additional hundreds of hours preparing another dozen applications
- ...and spending a grand in application fees
- ...and wasting a bunch of admissions officers' time</p>
<p>The two-phase system gives everyone a fallback that's still highly respectable. Ok maybe not everyone, but those who are more organized, researched and dedicated - which is probably correlated with being a better applicant anyway.</p>
<p>I applaud Harvard for being willing to take the lead on reform like this, but I'm not sure it isn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater.</p>
<p>-Steve</p>
<p>I applaud Harvard.</p>
<p>It cannot correct for underfunded public schools, the lack of internet access for the low-income kids, or the lack of training of staff and teachers, but it just made the admissions game a little more fair.</p>
<p>Although I believe that there are other Ivies that are better at undergraduate education, I have to give props to Harvard for being bold.</p>
<p>A point I didn't make in my first post that occurred to me later -- Why is Harvard talking about how poorer kids need to compare financial packages, when Harvard gives them a free ride? How can it get any better than that?</p>
<p>Anyway, there is another article I read on this subject straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. </p>
<p>I find it interesting in that another motive works its way in there:</p>
<p>President Bok: "Others who apply early and gain admission to the college of their choice have less reason to work hard at their studies during their final year of high school."</p>
<p>Dean Knowles: "These programs distort the high school experience by forcing both students and colleges to commit prematurely, based only upon the record at the end of the student's junior year. Moreover, students who are admitted early receive what often appears to be a 'free pass' for their second semester, sadly encouraging them to disengage from their academic experience."</p>
<p>So a problem was kids getting admitted and then coasting, it would seem. This seems a more likely problem to me than the confused, but otherwise brilliant, poor students. But then, maybe Harvard needs to vet its students better or start saying that admission is contingent upon maintaining one's grades.</p>
<p>As far as not knowing that one needs to research -- kids that are planning on applying to Harvard but aren't getting any guidance will have to have started sometime before senior year, figuring out what classes to take, seeing to their ECs, perhaps self-studying AP subjects that their high schools don't offer. They will look on the internet at the Harvard web site and that of other schools and will check out books on college admissions. They will get copies of the application early so they can work on essays. The nature of the EA process is right there. </p>
<p>BTW does anyone happen to have a copy of any flyer sent out by Harvard in the last year or two, one of those things that flood the mailbox of any student doing well on the PSAT. Does it mention EA and how it works? And if not, why couldn't it?</p>
<p>I don't understand the point made in the article about how eliminating EA would ease the anxiety of the admission process. It seems that the most anxious kids are those waiting for RD. The best way to eliminate the anxiety is to have one or more acceptances in hand early.</p>
<p>I do see some anxiety when one has to pick one ED or SCEA school. But with unrestricted EA, this would seem a positive thing -- just like applying to a rolling admissions school early so one knows one is sure to go somewhere. So why didn't Harvard just go to regular EA if this is the concern?</p>
<p>To respond to the post made while I was typing my last one -- there is free internet access available.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A point I didn't make in my first post that occurred to me later -- Why is Harvard talking about how poorer kids need to compare financial packages, when Harvard gives them a free ride? How can it get any better than that?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>but the other side of the coin is that under Harvard's SCEA you cna not apply to any other school's early program. For some, this means giving up the opportunity to apply early to a school where you stand a chance of merit money for the opportunity to toss your hat in the Harvard ring. In addition there are many poor students attending underserved schools where students and counselors are not as savvy about the college process this is a "benefit" of attending elite prep schools and public schools in wealthier communities (and one of the reasons why Harard considers EA to be disadvantaged to the poor)</p>