<p>As a sophomore at Harvard, this is fantastic news! I've worked as a student representative with admissions since freshman year, and I really believe that Princeton will be remembered as a pioneer in changing the college admissions landscape for the better. :)</p>
<p>I do believe that Princeton is making a brave move in the right direction, but I'd like to withhold my praise until I hear what Princeton is going to do with recruited athletes -- will Princeton just increase its use of likely letters for them to make up for not being able to offer them an early decision? And will Princeton start using (abusing) likely letters for non-athletes the way Dartmouth does?</p>
<p>Princeton currently has a high ED acceptance rate but it is skewed in favor of legacies, recruited athletes and development cases (ie. applicants whose families have given substantial amounts of money to the school), and even engineering students. Princeton is a smaller school than Harvard and Yale but fields more athletes and accepts more legacies. The reality is that Princeton may currently post an acceptance rate that is around 30% or higher, but for applciants not in one of those categories it is close to 10%. Legacies, recruited athletes and development cases tend to have lower academic records and SAT scores. That means that those who are not in one of the categories mentoned are most likely to be top applicants with top SAT scores and grades all competing for the remaining 10% of early spots not taken by legacies, recruited athletes, ect.
It will be interesting to see what happens as Princeton abolishes its ED policy. Atlhletes will still get likely letters indicating that Princeton is will likely take them so they can get commitments from the athletes that they will attend. Legacies who have given significant money to the school and development cases will also possibly get letters. Everyone else will have to wait until the spring to find out if they will be accepted.
The reality is that there really is not an advantage for applicants who do not fit into the categories of legacy, athlete or development case in the early pool, so there will be no change in admission chances for them by eliminating early decision. The wealthy and the athletes will be the ones who still benefit. The lower income applicants will have a better chance of getting accepted and that will be fair. However, the applcants who will gain no advantage are the middle class applicants who are not URM's.</p>
<p>I really thought Yale, or maybe Stanford, would be the next to make this change. I'm impressed that it was Princeton. Definitely the right decision, and puts all the more pressure on Yale and Stanford to do the same.</p>
<p>New York Times, today: "A week after Harvard abandoned early admissions as a program that puts low-income students at a disadvantage, Princeton followed suit yesterday, saying it hoped other universities would do the same. I think its important for there to be momentum, because I think its the right decision, said Shirley M. Tilghman, Princetons president. "</p>
<p>Daily Princetonian story:</p>
<p>Less than a week after rival Harvard shocked the world of elite college admissions by dropping early admission, Princeton announced yesterday that it would follow suit, abandoning its own program beginning next year.</p>
<pre><code>"It was a decision made with recognition that selectivity ratios and yield percentages may change, but that the underlying moral obligation to equalize the admissions process is more important," said Young Alumni Trustee Matt Margolin '05, who, like other members of the board, was briefed on the decision over the weekend.
"It was invigorating to see the president and dean of admissions put the equalization of admissions ahead of something like the U.S. News & World Report ranking," he said.
</code></pre>
<p>From The New York Times:
[quote]
Princeton Stops Its Early Admissions </p>
<p>By ALAN FINDER
Published: September 19, 2006
High school seniors begin a new college application season amid growing signs that the nations top colleges and universities have deep misgivings about the sanity and fairness of the annual admissions frenzy.</p>
<p>A week after Harvard abandoned early admissions as a program that puts low-income students at a disadvantage, Princeton followed suit yesterday, saying it hoped other universities would do the same... </p>
<p>Their moves come after the presidents of Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Barnard and seven other selective liberal arts colleges, usually fierce competitors for students, also put early admissions on the table for discussion at a two-day session in June in which they voiced their profound unease about the world they helped create...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Collegebound5--I'd like to see your backup for the legacy part of this quote.</p>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>"Princeton is a smaller school than Harvard and Yale but fields more athletes and accepts more legacies."</p>
<p>Approximately 9.9% of the Princeton class of 2010 constituted legacies, but I don't know how many were accepted. I haven't been able to find any stats about Harvard's percentages of accepted legacies. There has been much speculation about the fact that both Harvard and Princeton accept anywhere from 30-40% of legacies, but I have never seen actual figures. Do you know where they can be found?</p>
<p>I feel that it is a very bad decision, giving yet anoter unfair advantage to "underprivilidged minority" students. What's the betting that the same affirmative action bonus will still apply after this decision?</p>
<p>Furthermore, the students who take initiative in planning their education (what news stories now disparagingly call affluent and savvy, though they do not have to be either), will simply apply EA somewhere else, and a significant number of them will decide to go there. The next class, I fear, will be less strong than '10.</p>
<p>" ... Rapelye also said that the University's admissions strategy is likely to change, with her office employing a waitlist for the first time in years. "One strategy we might use is to be quite conservative with admits and then admit several hundred students from the waitlist."</p>
<p>10% of the admits, but 14% of the matriculants.</p>
<p>Re legacies: Because Princeton moms and dads have told their kids how great it is over the years:).</p>
<p>It's nice that Princeton is so open with this information. Does anyone have similar information for Harvard?</p>
<p>hell, harvard doesn't even fill out a CDS form.</p>
<p>as for the "shoring up" allegation: it's not at all about keeping up the yield, which was dropped by u.s. news years ago, and which princeton has made clear is a merely secondary concern. it's about assembling a class with the desired characteristics. now, with the additional uncertainties of just a single admissions round with no early "base" in place, this virtually requires the heavy use of a waitlist to fill "holes." i fully expect to see harvard use the same strategy next fall.</p>
<p>The proportion of legacies in the class at Harvard is about the same - possibly a bit lower this year. As everywhere, the admit rate - and yield rate - is far higher for legacies.</p>
<p>And of course maintaining a high yield rate is key to achieving diversity goals; in "designing" the class, it is important to target those you want and to come as close to a bullseye as possible.</p>
<p>If you have to admit two people for every one who matriculates (ie, achieve a 50% yield) then you never can be sure <em>which</em> 50% you will end up with.</p>
<p>That's why yield rate is so important - particularly if economic, geographic, ethnic, gender etc. diversity is important to you.</p>
<p>If the initial yield rate is less than optimum, then the best way to achieve your design goals (without a binding ED program) is to go "light" (ie, "conservative") with your initial admits, and rely heavily on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Via the waitlist, you can cherry-pick to fill holes, since the yield rate is a satisfying 100%.</p>
<p>Since Harvard's RD yield rate has, historically, been higher than the yield rate at its competitors even when those schools have added in captive ED admits (71.5% this year) it's potential problem is not so great. I'd expect its overall yield rate (after the move to abolish the early program takes effect) to fall - from this year's 79% number to perhaps 75%. There will be utilization of the waitlist, as there generally has been (it is always better to underenroll, slightly, and to backfill, than to overenroll and have insufficient beds for the freshers) but I wouldn't forsee the "hundreds" of waitlist admits about which Rapelye has speculated.</p>
<p>All this talk of the process now being fairer is absurd. I still se NO way that early admissions harms poor and minority students. Early admissions, by its very nature, gives boosts to people seeking admission, so how is it harming people?</p>
<p>I spoke to President Marx of Amherst at a reception last week, the day after Harvard announced the decision, and he mentioned how Amherst and its peer schools were in serious discussion about ED. It'll be interesting to see how the top LAC's and other elite schools outside of HYPS handle this situation, as they have far more to lose by ending ED than schools with SCEA/EA do. It seems like it will work best if the top LAC's and other elite ED schools end ED at the same time. Hopefully, they will be able to act collectively in a way that won't be collusion, as the article mentioned. By the way, nice picture of Johnson Chapel and North Hall.</p>
<p>as a hispanic at public school, it seems to me that a much more effective way of making admissions fairer is to simply blind your legacy status. although it isnt a 'major' factor as they say, why should that give a student more of a right to attend over someone equally qualified just because their parent was there 30 years earlier?</p>
<p>I agree with kk. How does getting rid of ED help poor or minority students? They can apply early too. Does Princeton give financial aid to those who are accepted early decision? I guess if they didn't that could be a reason. But if Princeton does give financial aid for ED admits, then I don't see a problem because they have a great financial aid system... don't they? I thought they basically made it so everyone accepted has ability to attend.</p>
<p>I REALLY don't understand why Harvard did it. ED is one thing, but any minority or poor person could apply to Harvard EA and wait until April or whenever to decide if they wanted to go after comparing different financial aid packages that other schools offer.</p>
<p>One hears alot about how ED allows a student to express how much he/she wants to go to a specific school. This is often not the way the choice to apply ED is made. What frequently happens is that the savvy applicant (with very high priced advice) makes a calculated decision about which school to apply to based upon a careful calculation of how far the ED tool will enable him/her to reach. They use ED as a means of getting into the biggest "name" possible.
Furthermore, the ED craze has left many top students feeling that if they do not use ED to lock up a spot at a school they would be happy with, they might end up not getting in to any of their top choices. Consequently, they sometimes lose the opportunity to ever apply to their dream school. In so many ways ED is just another means by which those who are already advantaged are able to gain further adavantage in the admissions process.</p>