<p>I applaud the leadership shown by Harvard and the willingness to try something new. Of course, the cynic in me could see that this move also represents a deadly salvo across the bow of its competitors. Harvard, easily the biggest name in admissions, is much better equipped to navigate a world that does not have the crutches of ED or EA. Other schools that rely more heavily on ED wout not fare that well. While I see the decision as a preemptive strike, I do applaud the boldness of the move, and look forward to the read the statements by the other schools. In particular, I believe that it should be fun reading the statements by Penn's Lee Stetson and especially by Dartmouth's Karl Furstenberg.</p>
<p>However, I hope that Harvard does not stop there, and couples this decision with one of HIGHER transparency, and that this decision does not mean the school will increase its "behind the curtains" policies. Dropping EA but increasing the practice of Highly Likely letters--or similar programs--to selected students would be a major setback. </p>
<p>I also hope seeing Bok adopting policies that would grant the wishes of Fitzsimmons and his associates for high school students recapturing their summers. With its sails filled with boldness, could Harvard show that the nice statements by the admission officers were not mere lip service? Could they finally eradicate the most egregious displays of gamemanship by prohibiting the inclusion of application data that exceeds a "decent" maximum? Would it be nice to see students DISCOURAGED from taking 10+ AP and spending small fortunes on paid academic camps for the SOLE purpose of beefing up an application file? </p>
<p>SWAMP? That is one utterly bad acronym, and for a number of reasons. However, it is quite telling that the addition of the M celebrates the beauty of waters as murky as the data that propelled the school in this lofty position. :D</p>
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This may be off topic, but I completely agree with jmmom that one of the best things that could happen to calm down the college application process is to get rid of USNews rankings.
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<p>Not off-topic at all, Odyssey. By eliminating EA, Harvard takes the lead in admissions reform outlined by the Education Conservancy. A lynchpin of reform is eliminating, or at least marginalizing, rankings based on irrelevant and easily manipulated data. See the newly revived "Admissions Revolution" thread.</p>
<p>I'm continually amazed by CC posters who quote USNews rankings as though they were deeply meaningful (e.g., "I wouldn't pay more than instate public for a #75 ranked LAC, because our in state publics are better than that for a LOT less money."</p>
<p>Jumping onto the off-topic bandwagon, with odyssey and celloguy.</p>
<p>The USN&WR madness just gets crazier and crazier. This year, Johns Hopkins "plummeted" from #13 to #16. You should have read some of the posts on the JHU forum. Now, why in the world would a person in his or her right mind be interested in JHU if it is ranked #13, but no longer interested if it is ranked #16?</p>
<p>But this is what the rankings hath wrought.</p>
<p>I admit to being an information junkie. I like seeing what schools are "good" in different fields; it's a way to help people decide what colleges to consider. But the artificial crafting of a system which purports to put a fine point on which is #1 vs. #2, #13 vs. #16 is absurd. Most people don't even know what goes into those rankings, and wouldn't care about (at least) half the criteria if they did know.</p>
<p>This change will lead to a lot of headache for over-reaching applicants. Many times, it is the rejection by Harvard EA that belatedly forces kids to recalibrate their application lists. I hope something else triggers the recalibration for these kids before it's too late.</p>
<p>Offsetting this, the change will probably cut down a bit on the number of frivolous long-shot apps at Harvard.</p>
<p>I don't understand how a rejection by Harvard EA or anybody else EA could force (or even allow) kids to recalibrate their application lists.</p>
<p>At my kids' high schools, transcript/recommendation requests for colleges with January application deadlines (which is most of the selective schools) have to be submitted to the high school registrar before Thanksgiving. So no matter what happens with a kid's ED/EA application, the rest of the kid's application list is locked in well before the ED/EA notification. There is no way for a kid to add additional colleges to the list after the notification.</p>
<p>remember this is a country that is enthralled with how many times a person swings and misses a ball, how many times a person throws one and how fast...when you see how the country's sport is a #s game, it is no surprise the college ratings has become such a game as well....</p>
<p>often those baseball stats are as important as the game itself</p>
<p>"By eliminating EA, Harvard takes the lead in admissions reform outlined by the Education Conservancy. A lynchpin of reform is eliminating, or at least marginalizing, rankings based on irrelevant and easily manipulated data. See the newly revived "Admissions Revolution" thread."</p>
<p>Marian -
"At my kids' high schools, transcript/recommendation requests for colleges with January application deadlines (which is most of the selective schools) have to be submitted to the high school registrar before Thanksgiving."</p>
<p>This is what is advised at my son's hs, but is not a requirement. Also remember that schools that send the majority of students to non-elite colleges will have significantly later admissions deadlines to deal with.</p>
<p>While I think this is a good move by Harvard, unless many other schools follow suit, I don't know how much this will decrease the pressure of the process or the "gaming" aspect of it.</p>
<p>I know that one of the issues that worried me about doing ED to Princeton was that, if I didn't get in, I probably would be severely diminishing my chances at a lot of the other schools of my list. So, while I was fairly confident that if I applied early to Brown, for instance, I would get in, if they accepted a couple of kids ED from my high school and I had to apply RD, I might well be rejected. However, Princeton was my clear first choice, and applying ED would at least give me a lift that made the reach more reasonable. </p>
<p>But what if Princeton didn't have an early admissions policy? Then, I would be jeapordizing my chance of getting into a slew of amazing schools on the chance that I would be the one out of ten amazing candidates accepted by an admissions committee that would have no way of knowing how committed I was to attending the school. I hope I would still have risked it, but I'm not sure.</p>
<p>There's another thread on this topic in the College Admissions forum. In it, DianeR ask if an applicant, any applicant, isn't smart enough to understand what's involved in applying to college, what makes anyone think that they're qualified for admission to Harvard?</p>
<p>There are many kinds of "smart." Many incredibly intelligent persons are quite unworldly; many very bright students do not have parents who went through the process themselves, have shared with their kids their financial situations and concerns, have good GCs, etc....</p>
<p>I remember an incredibly erudite prof who could speak several languages. He was in his 60s when he found out that he could deduct certain expenses as business expenses. And it happened totally by chance. Unwordly? Definitely. Dumb? Of course not.</p>
<p>And in concert with that, Marite, whether it's apocryphal or not, it's said that Einstein couldn't make change for a dollar. Be that as it may, we need certain technical skills to survive if not perservere in this world and if we don't have them or can't get someone to help us with them, then Harvard could be a very tough place to go to college.</p>
<p>One function of ED, for all of its flaws, was to pull kids "out of the pipeline," as one adcom told me, so that they wouldn't just plaster all the top schools with applications. If other schools follow Harvard's lead, will all the Ivies and SWAMP schools start admitting the same applicants, or try to devise new ways to psych out who really wants to attend? Or will we see a policy similar to the one at Oxford and Cambridge, where a student can only apply to one of the two?</p>
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He can pressure all he wants as a civilan but not try to pass laws dictating how a private business should conduct its business.
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<p>Ahem, it's somewhat disingenuous to characterize Harvard as a "private business."</p>
<p>--almost a quarter of Harvard's operating budget comes from Federal research contracts (well over half a billion dollars last year)</p>
<p>--Harvard received $600 million in gifts last year, almost all of which generated significant tax writeoffs for the donors. In essense, other taxpayers provided "matching money" for these gifts. The justification for the tax-deductibility of these gifts is that Harvard qualifies as a 501-(c)(3) public charity.</p>
<p>--Harvard receives Federal funds for Pell grant students as well as SEOG funds and also gets the privilege of awarding government subsidized student loans.</p>
<p>--On the basis of its status as 501-(c)(3) public charity, Harvard also gets a tax-exemption so that it pays no corporate income tax on the billion dollars it earned in investment income on its endowment last year.</p>
<p>If Harvard lost its status as a 501-(c)(3) public charity and also lost its status as an institution qualified to award Federal sponsored student aid and eligible to receive Federal research contract money, it would have to contract enormously.</p>
<p>Harvard tried to stand on principle for a while in keeping military recruiters off-campus because of their policies towards gay servicemembers. Ultimately, they realized that it was not viable to resist, because of their heavy financial dependence on government funds.</p>
<p>EDIT: It is interesting to note that there are only a couple of private colleges that choose to maintain their independence as private institutions by refusing to accept Federal student funds and Federal research funds. Hillsdale and Grove City refuse to accept such funds because they do not want the strings that may come along with them, now or in the future. (They do, however, choose to qualify as 501-(c)(3) public charities, presumably because they believe it is less likely that unacceptable strings will be attached to that status.)</p>
<p>Actually, I think that it is easier for an unworldly student to attend HYP than to attend a sink-or-swim public university. The level of student support is higher at places such as HYP, though not as high as at a nurturing LAC.</p>
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One function of ED, for all of its flaws, was to pull kids "out of the pipeline," as one adcom told me, so that they wouldn't just plaster all the top schools with applications.
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<p>That's an important point overlooked by many of the ED critics.</p>
<p>Binding ED is, by far, the most efficient mechanism for matching up colleges and qualified students who MOST WANT TO ATTEND those schools. My guess is that students who are truly excited about their college choices are likely to have a more positive transition to college life.</p>
<p>The biggest flaw in the overall admissions system is that it is so inefficient in this regard. Binding ED is much closer to the way the system should work: matching up first-choice colleges with first-choice students.</p>
<p>I don't think Harvard's change will have much impact on the binding ED schools. It may incrementally increase the number of targeted apps to ED schools. But, overall, it took so little commitment to apply to Harvard early, that doing away with it probably won't change behaviors much.</p>