I am trying to understand a point made in post 15, and also since then. That ED is discriminatory. Because most here that call it discrimination believe it is skewed toward wealthier students? Is that discrimination?
If a guy can buy a new Chevy cruze, but not a new Cadillac, is that discrimination? If another guy can only afford a used Cruze is that discrimination? Is being average financially, or lower income a protected class in reference to college admissions?
Any adult with the money can buy a new Cadillac; it isn’t based on race, color, sexual orientation, etc. If a guy with the money has a better shot at buying a product, how is that discrimination?
Here’s one: For much of the past 40 years or so, they’ve both had top-ranked English departments. If I had decided to go for a PhD when I left Yale, Duke is definitely one of the places I would have looked.
Until last June, Duke had been led for a quarter century by Yale PhDs, one of whom, the immediately past president Richard Brodhead, had been at Yale continuously since he was an undergraduate until becoming president of Duke, ultimately serving as Dean of Yale College. He devoted a lot of effort to enriching the Duke undergraduate experience.
@1NJParent I’ve thought plenty about it. My older kids did benefit from ED. We talked with both schools before applying and were strongly encouraged to apply ED if the school was their #1. Both schools were smaller LAC’s and they knew my kids stats before the applications were sent. (My older kids graduated from high school in 2011 and 2013). They each only applied to 2 schools. One ED and one EA (safety). They both heard from their backup schools first, so they had an option if they didn’t get in to #1 choice ED. They both got in. There was no anguish. There was no drama. They kept it simple and have had no regrets.
I honestly don’t understand why kids wouldn’t apply ED or EA. Get your answer and move on so that you can enjoy 2nd semester Sr year. People make this way more complicated than it needs to be.
“It is also selfish, in that it distorts the system for others.”
" But don’t you see the increasing anguishes of many other families year after year? "
Or it could be altruistic instead of selfish by removing a lot of competition in chasing after that merit aid and adding even more hordes of applicants submitting 10, 15, 20 applications each because I doubt eliminating ED would result in less applications per student rather than having the opposite effect. Seriously, you think it’s an issue but imagine all those ED students instead competing against your kid. That would include the athletes, the legacies (or are you going to make special exceptions for them?) Some of them would be full pays that decided, heck, I might as well compete for that merit aid, too. Be careful what you wish for.
“If your D or S had been rejected by the ED school, you’d be facing the same anguish many other families face”
We had both outcomes with 2 kids so yes we did do RD once and yes it was more unpleasant (work, stress, app fees) but the results were still good but it put my kid in contention with others - increasing competition for all - including for merit as the kid received some even if it wasn’t a priority - not decreasing it.
@doschicos i think wed rather compete with athletes and legacies in RD than have the spots already filled with ED kids who filled an enrolled (rather than admitted slot). Since they have to guess at yield during RD, our shots at admission wouldnt be quite as low
No need to get defensive about Yale, @JHS. I remember that either you or your children went there. As did my nephew. Fine university.
But culturally it is very different from Duke. Yale attracts many of the same type of intellectual students that UChicago does. Duke definitely less so. Also Duke is a sports powerhouse, and that has a large affect on student life and campus unity. Some people want that, and others could be turned off by it.
Anyway, my point is that fit matters. Once you are at the level of Duke, Stanford, Yale, UChicago, or UPenn, you are getting very similar levels of teaching quality, and strength of peers. And aside from Stanford (and MIT’s) obvious strengths in tech, there are no opportunities closed to you from any of the top-10 schools. So choose your ED school based upon fit, not rankings.
Why would s/he need to apply to many more if the majority of the apps are submitted EA and include a couple of true safeties? Seems like something else is at play there (like rankings). My youngest applied to 6 schools. 5 EA and one RD. The only reason he applied to one RD is because that school only offered ED and RD and he wasn’t ready to commit. One of his friends only applied RD and it was painful for him. He watched all of his friends have at least 1 or 2 acceptances while he had to wait. Fortunately for him, one of the schools he chose had rolling admissions so he had at least one acceptance in hand by the end of February.
That’s all true, @hebegebe , but student bodies aren’t monolithic like that. Students aren’t stereotypes. I have friends who went to Duke who are quite intellectual. The daughter of friends is a recent graduate – she’s a mixed-race, left-wing person mainly interested in feminist lit, with zero interest in sports, who absolutely loved Duke. The last kid I know who went to Duke struggled a lot precisely with deciding whether to apply to Duke ED or Yale SCEA.
Admissions officers dislike stereotypes. Someone who looks like she belongs at the University of Chicago may have a better chance of getting accepted at Duke or Dartmouth these days than at the University of Chicago.
And I don’t think Duke is exactly a “sports powerhouse.” It’s certainly a basketball powerhouse, and kids tend to love that, even the lefty intellectuals. Just as, at Yale, the second-rate brand of football they play there is a big deal to students. On the whole, Duke’s women’s programs seem stronger than its men’s teams, but I don’t know that has such a big effect on campus life.
I agree completely of course that people should care more about fit than rankings. But I also believe, very strongly, that most kids “fit” in many more places than they think.
Why would a person interested in Yale not like Duke? Well, for both me and my daughter, the thought of going to school in the South wasn’t an option (parents from the South, relatives still live there, still never ever thought of going to school there that’s why most HBCUs were never on our list) and not a big sports fan so the fact the Ivy League teams are usually not very competitive wasn’t a reason. So, there may be reasons why a kid would not want to apply to Yale over Duke. Don’t like snow the entire school year, actually wants to follow a good sports team, loves the South, knows that Duke is a stellar school in its own right. I talk about fit all the time on these forums. After you get past the academic program, the rigor of the school, whether or not it has a major you can live with (and that you will most likely change before you graduate) and the cost, the most important thing is the fit. Is it a big party school? Is it full of frat boys? Are the students super competitive and cut throat or known to be collaborative? Can I wear my flip flops to school most of the year? And on and on. I am so sad that most kids are driven to see schools as commodities instead of somewhere they will be blessed to spend four years of their life before they actually have to enter the real adult world.
^The most scary part of that Chronicle article is that the ethical guideline of requiring colleges to wait until October 15th for any required application deadlines and for May 1st to require student deposits for RD is being questioned. This would be the opposite of moving away from early decision— it would make it hard for kids to know when to apply to and reply to colleges, and kids might be required to make decisions much earlier. The common reply date of May 1st is a very good practice, allowing accepted RD students to visit schools and weigh their options. If it were removed, someone might be required to reply to their safety before hearing back from their reach!
@doschicos, I seriously don’t get why you’re not allowing that ED distorts the admissions system by giving a higher likelihood of admission to those who won’t be reliant on competitive or variable merit aid for attendance. Yeah, I get that most of the colleges being investigated by DOJ are need-based-aid only, but they’re not even remotely the only ones to be pulling ever more of their incoming classes from the ED round.
There’s is no need to share EA names as they are not binding. I can see both sides here. I am inclined to actually favor the sharing of names if an ED contract is in play. If the college gives its ED decision early and includes the FA package at the same time and allows for at least a short buffer period for contact with FA depts. if FA isn’t workable and this is all done by the start of RD then the ED kids should have no problem if their school shares their name. As long as the names are released after the decisions and a short FA ‘dispute’ period. If you are denied or deferred then no name is released, just accepted. Let’s just keep it clear what’s going on and who’s going to do what and you either agree or don’t sign the ED agreement
…and they meet full need. (yes, as determined by them.) And don’t forget that most merit schools do not meet full need. So, for the poor/lower middle class, a full need deal from a tippy top school can be much better than a merit+financial gap. For such a kid, ED can be win-win.
Disclosure: my son benefited from ED to a full need school and he was able to attend for the less than the cost of our instate public flagship.
“The fact that colleges accept kids at a higher rate during ED makes sense, they know those kids have that college as a first choice and want to attend.”
Actually they know their college may not be the first choice but they want students that aren’t complaining that they didn’t get into their real first choice. Deans, presidents that are honest about ED don’t admit there are many benefits to the students for ED, but one they claim is higher morale.
“They are thrilled with their acceptances and financial aid.”
For every 30 students thrilled, there are 70 students who are not. Even if it’s good for some cases, that doesn’t mean it’s good policy overall.
“It is a misconception that only rich kids apply ED.”
It’s not only rich kids, it’s that few poor kids apply. The best study I’ve seen is the one by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation that said 15% of low income/high achieving kids apply early compared to 30% high income/high achieving.
“Two of my kids went ED - they got in and we were done by Christmas.”
Ok, but guess what, one of the kids I know got into MIT EA, done by Christmas, SCEA at Stanford, done by Christmas. Except they could wait till April to decide in case they changed their minds (which happens to 17 year olds). This is the main reason that HYPS went from ED to SCEA, and so even they knew how bad a program ED is.
Princeton freshman admit class for 2022-- 1941 students
799 students were admitted EA from pool of 5402 applications. (14.8% admit rate)
That leaves 1142 spots for everybody else. And discounting the EA apps that would be 29968 apps.
"Princeton University has offered admission to 1,941 students, or 5.5 percent of the record 35,370 applicants "
Look at these numbers a minute and consider the ramifications of NOT applying EA to Princeton.
EA students have an almost 15% admit rate.
RD students are at (1142 spots with 29968 (I discounted the EA apps)-- 3.8 percent admit.
So it’s not 5.5 percent–it’s 15% to do EA and less than 4 to do RD.
Appears to hold true for all the Ivy’s.
From a Huff Post article 2013–
"At the University of Pennsylvania, 24.9 percent of those who applied early were admitted, compared to the 9.4 percent of applicants who were admitted in the regular round. "
I don’t have a kid in this game anymore.
But I’d be looking very closely if I had a kid that could benefit right now.
My opinion is that this game will “catch up with itself”. It’ll be a non-entity. When everyone applies all it will do is move application dates earlier. Careful what you wish for. I tend towards the “law of unintended consequences”.
You are getting lost in the weeds over Yale vs. Duke silliness. Then just pick two other schools. Although the campus architecture certainly looks similar at those two places…
The point you are missing is that all these kids don’t just have ONE favorite. Because of the SCEA/ED rules within the top 20, they only get one silver bullet to aim at just one school.
If the rules provided two silver bullets, then the kids would apply to early to two top favorites. If the got three silver bullets, they’d apply to three.
From the kids’ perspective, I actually like the idea of double or triple EA/ED over single. I think that would tone down the whole crazy current system significantly. But there’s no reason why the schools would be interested in going that way.
Top colleges ARE a commodity. The colleges are selling their name at this point because prestige adds so much to their worth (and to a graduates potential salary).
The numbers game is huge whether you think so or not. It pays to be “elite”.
The numbers game is now being played with EA and ED numbers.
The college’s best interest is to fill a class to a certain point and squeeze the percentages to be/remain “elite”.
So–back to original question…
Does this scenario warrant government investigation?
Don’t know. Someone must think so. The monetary investment in college has nothing but increase over the years.
Is sharing info of student enrollment including who and what between colleges ethical?
No. Shouldn’t be happening. Industries have already gone through this process. People working within an industry have been “black-balled” and unable to get better jobs because of “employee info sharing” with regard to salaries, etc.
College admissions at higher levels are now an “industry”.
I agree to a point. Unless someone has signed off on a media release saying that a business or entity can use their information then that information is private. I haven’t read an ED agreement in along time, but if the student specifically agreed that their name or whatever they agree to is available for use or sharing then I’m not so sure. I’m also not sure where the intersection of FERPA occurs. Epic.org has this on their website:
Again re; Post #157 if a student doesn’t have ONE top choice, number 1 favorite, call it whatever you want, then the student doesn’t need to make an ED choice so I’m struggling to think that the DOJ investigation has anything to do with the practice of ED, plus the fact that are dozens upon dozens of other selective private colleges practicing ED. I think the early bird gets the worm in many, many aspects of life so the sheer fact that a student who cannot or will not have a number 1 favorite might get shut our of some college application cycle because the student has to wait to apply is the only downside and a calculated risk if the student suddenly decides in February that XYZ really is their “favorite”
Seriously, you think it’s an issue but imagine all those ED students instead competing against your kid. That would include the athletes, the legacies (or are you going to make special exceptions for them?) Some of them would be full pays that decided, heck, I might as well compete for that merit aid, too. Be careful what you wish for.