Penn Early Decision -- now RESTRICTIVE Early Decision?

How do they enforce ED policy on international students?

Their options are pretty limited. In the US they can threaten to blacklist the school or can complain to the college counselor. They depend on the honor code and the US schools to police this for them to a large extent. I don’t think any of those tactics will be as effective with foreign schools. They could let a bunch of peer institutions know, but I doubt whether they have the time to do this.

@VeryLuckyParent

Of course it’s a very small number - Penn only loses about 15-20 ED admits every year. That’s the benefit of a binding admissions agreement. How could the number of students it loses early to Chicago or MIT be higher than that?

@Cue7 Penn admitted 1332 students in its ED round. What number would you consider a number at which Penn would worry about its losses?

BTW, can you point me to an official source for the 15-20 number?

@VeryLuckyParent not sure why Penn is doing this. I really cannot believe that Penn loses a meaningful number of ED applicants, enough to make it necessary to institute this policy. I think most students are afraid of ED and the commitment and the ones who do commit are those who know that Penn is their top choice. Also I think Penn is bound to have more ED applicants that genuinely have Penn as their first choice than the other schools on the same tier, i.e. Columbia, Chicago, due to the dual degree programs and Wharton. I can’t see a meaningful number of applicants going into the application process with the intention or even the know-how to game the system (i.e apply to both an EA and ED school with the intention of potentially breaking off the ED contract for some reason). Also Penn s financial aid is as good as MIT and Chicago – but then again Chicago has merit scholarships which changes things (but how many students would that affect?).

I really disagree with your post regarding internationals, given that I am kind of one, in the sense that while American i mostly grew up and finished high school abroad. It is true that outside the US, Harvard/MIT/Stanford are the top dream schools. Next comes Yale, Princeton. Next tier Columbia/Penn/Chicago. It is very true that most international students are very prestige-focused (and understandably so, they are making a big move leaving their country so they seek the security of a globally super-strong brand). An international student with competitive stats simply will not even think about committing ED to a school like Penn, unless Penn is their number one choice (and there are quite a few intl students who do have Penn as their first choice). An international dreaming of Harvard will apply SCEA to Harvard to maximize their chances at Harvard, and then leave the rest for ED. Plus the vast majority of them do not apply for financial aid so there is no way they could break the ED contract at Penn.

The only feasible explanation I can find is that Penn wants to limit the ED pool to people who absolutely, 150% have Penn as their first choice. It seems petty to me but maybe they are moving in this direction to further rationalize accepting the majority of the class ED and further legitimize the yield which hit 68-69% this year. I really don’t think it is gonna affect the quality of the ED applicants in any significant way. Yeah Penn might get a few hundred fewer ED apps but not much will chance imo.

@Cue7 I think you are right about Penn and Chicago. I would argue Penn entered the just-below-HYPSM top game 16-17 years ago at the very end of the 90s, after the vast reforms under judith rodin started having a tangible effect on the school. For Chicago it has been the last 4-5 years of really rising through the ranks of the whole prestige-rankings game. So yeah I would agree thaT these two schools are probably the most conscious of their standing. Columbia has been part of the top game for a long time, throughout the 20th century. But nowadays I don’t see any meaningful differential between the three schools in terms of desirability etc.

@penn95,

I agree with much of what you say, but Chicago is returning to the very top, not seeing it for the first time. Here are estimated rankimgs from 1910 and 1925.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/1358378-the-best-universities-in-1910-and-1925.html

@Penn95 I agree with you. Penn’s restrictive early decision move is strange (no other college has this), but they must be trying to decrease ED applications.

@Penn95 I guess we will never really know but I just don’t buy the theory that they are trying to limit the number of ED applications. There are less convoluted and more effective ways of doing that. Maybe, I am a cynic but I feel that nowadays almost every move these schools (not just Penn) make is either aimed at increasing the number of applications, decreasing their admit rate, increasing their yield or lowering their cost of providing financial aid.

@penn95 @hebegebe That link on change in prestige of Chicago is another reason Penn would never try to lower the number of ED apps. Chicago played the contrarian game for decades with all kinds of weird decisions ( not investing in engineering, ignoring undergraduate studies, not paying close attention to finances and fund raising, alienating it’s feeder high schools etc etc) superbly confident that none of that would really hurt it’s superb reputation or prestige. They paid a heavy price for that. In the fast changing world of higher education making one single bad contrarian move could dethrone you from your perch for decades. No school is willing to risk that now, specially under the harsh light of yearly rankings.

Penn was criticized for accepting over half their class during the ED round for the last few years. They may be planning to take less this year. I highly doubt they are worried about the few students who break the ED contract. Penn will probably make some sort of announcement about this new policy - most students/guidance counselors haven’t even heard about it yet.I’m wondering if the common app is going to enforce it - like they do if someone tries to apply to two schools ED. Will the common app be able to prevent an EA application from a Penn ED applicant? (Not that I’m suggesting students ignore the policy - I"m absolutely not advocating that - just wondering how it will be enforced.

I don’t think they are explicitly trying to reduce the ED pool, but rather make sure people who apply ED are 110% committed to Penn. I believe they are gonna keep accepting 50-55% of the class ed but now they will have weeded out the few people are don’t have penn as their absolute first choice. It still seems petty to me that they would do that but who knows. I think the number of ED apps will go a bit down as a result, but i am willing to bet it won’t be by more than a few hundred apps, if that. I guess we need to wait and see.

Maybe Penn is trying to increase yield even more and thus reduce acceptance rate.

Penn is at a disadvantage when it comes to acceptance rate due to its considerably larger class size than Chicago, Columbia, Duke, HYPSM . When yield was factored into the rankings Penn was able to be in the top 5, but since usnews stopped using it, Penn has been relegated to the lower half of the top 5. Also it is part of Penn’s identity to admit more well-rounded people or people with amazing ECs (company founders, charities etc) who might have competitive but not amazing SATs which then results in lower average SATs, which is similar to Stanford s philosophy. I don’t think Penn is willing to sacrifice that by admitting more of the bookish, nerdy high SAT kids at the expense of what it thinks are more interesting people, so maybe it is looking for ways to improve its ranking through lowering acceptance rate.

And I can’t say I blame them, I don’t see any legitimate reason why Penn should be ranked lower than Columbia or Chicago. This year Penn ranked #9, the first time it has held a position that low in almost 20 years, so it might have been a wake-up call to action. This isn’t a reflection of deterrioration in quality or any other issue, Penn has been going from strength to strength in all areas. It is just that the ranking criteria don’t favor Penn as much so i guess they feel that some changes needs to be made. StillI don’t see how this new policy will have a meaningful impact on the acceptance rate though.

I think what Penn needs to do is lower the class size by 400-500 people and they should be fine. Not just to make the acceptance rate more competitive, but just in general I think Penn is slightly too big for an ivy, a class size of 1900-2000 would be ideal.