<p>I can not belive it that finally Princeton did the right thing. They saw the interest of kids who need aid and who shy away from applying early there as they do not know much about aids formulas. I hope Princeton takes less student in ED for a dry run and give at least a chance to kids who need aid and want to compare aids. This way they have lesson plan for next year. Kudos to princeton.</p>
<p>the cynic in me says this is nothing but a PR & political move. As a practical matter, the athletes and legacies and developmental applicants will still get in, but their letter will be dated April 1, not December 1. Thus, H & P no longer have to face the bad press that they are filling ~50% their class with rich kids early. </p>
<p>I-dad: if well-matched students for Dartmouth, Brown et al want at shot at the H-Lotto, why wouldn't they just apply to all of those schools RD? Yes, I realize that some game the system -- apply ED somewhere, anywhere -- but is the number that game that big?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Which gets back to the claim made by Bill Fitzsimmons and now Sheila Tighman, that ED "advantages the advantaged."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not if enrolling a predictable student body is the foundation underlying record levels of need-based aid. If the remaining few dozen need-only schools throw in the towel and enter the explicit merit-aid discount bidding wars, it will most assuredly NOT be an advantage for lower income students.</p>
<p>The current enrollment levels of low-income students are not the result of ED policies. Those enrollment levels are currently, and will remain in the future, based on financial aid budgets. The budgets are largely fixed. Every dollar diverted from need-based aid to merit-discount bidding for high stat yield reduces the availability of elite college education for low income students.</p>
<p>Most need-only schools are currently feeling pressure to enter the merit-discount bidding wars. Combine drastically reduced yield with a shrinking applicant base over the next ten years and need-only policies will be a relic of the past.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I-dad: if well-matched students for Dartmouth, Brown et al want at shot at the H-Lotto, why wouldn't they just apply to all of those schools RD? Yes, I realize that some game the system -- apply ED somewhere, anywhere -- but is the number that game that big?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Every student "games the system" in putting together the college list. There's no such thing as a [rational] "first-choice" without a corresponding calculation of admissions odds at that "first choice" school.</p>
<p>If these calculations were not part of the equation, every school kid in America would send an RD app to Harvard. What's to lose?</p>
<p>This is what Harvard is banking on and why I say that Princeton fell for Harvard's sucker play.</p>
<p>Shirley Tilghman...</p>
<p>
[quote]
If these calculations were not part of the equation, every school kid in America would send an RD app to Harvard. What's to lose?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>S1 had no interest in HYPSM and applied to LACs. S2 had no interest in LACs and applied to H & S.</p>
<p>I am not advocating that every college should follow Harvard's lead. I'm not even sure that it would be a good idea for Tufts to do so. But I think it is a good idea for HYPS to abolish ED/SCEA.</p>
<p>I think that what Harvard and Princeton are doing is great. I wish it had happened sooner.</p>
<p>The ED/SCEA system pressures savvy students into limiting their dreams.</p>
<p>In an ED-less world, my daughter, who is applying to colleges this fall, would probably send an application to Yale (not Harvard; she doesn't like Harvard). And this would not be ridiculous. Her stats are such that it would not have been inappropriate for her to try.</p>
<p>She knows, though, that if she applied to Yale, it would be best to do so SCEA because her chances SCEA would be better than her chances as an RD applicant. But applying SCEA to Yale would make it impossible for her to apply ED or SCEA anywhere else. And the same rules apply to other schools: SCEA/ED applicants have a greater chance of admission. Thus, if my daughter applied to Yale, she would be decreasing her chances of being admitted to her second and third choice schools, and increasing her chances of being stuck at Safety U.</p>
<p>This is a chance she was not willing to take. She crossed Yale off her list. Instead, she took a good look at a group of slightly less selective colleges that interest her, picked her favorite among them, and will apply ED to that school, with several other schools of similar or lesser selectivity as backups. She will claim, at least on the application, that her ED school is her "first choice," but it isn't, really. She made a strategic decision. </p>
<p>I wish this hadn't been necessary. In my opinion, seventeen-year-olds shouldn't be forced to think this way. Maybe next year kids won't have to make these kinds of choices.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm a romantic, but I think that seventeen-year-olds should be allowed to have dreams. They may not be able to achieve those dreams, but they shouldn't be forced to give them up without even trying.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yes, I realize that some game the system -- apply ED somewhere, anywhere -- but is the number that game that big?
[/quote]
I think that the number of college seniors opting to use ED/SCEA is "that big." And by "that big," I do not mean to accuse these students of gaming the system. I think there are very few who take that cynical approach.</p>
<p>I think that today's hs students are scared s***less of the college admissions process and of their own chances of admission to the schools of their choice. I think they feel pressure to "use the ED chip" because of the boost it might give them toward acceptance at a school for which they feel qualified but feel horribly uncertain of their chances of winning a place. They feel as if they will have made a mistake of they don't pick one of their top choice schools and go for ED there.</p>
<p>I know that at some places (apparently interetestdad's kid's high school), it is a very small proportion of students who go ED/SCEA (I think he said it is in the single digit%). But in our area, and many others I've heard of, it is 40%-50%-60%. I don't think these kids have a clear stand-out first choice school and I don't think they should. But they feel they need to pick one.</p>
<p>IMO, it is an unnecessary and unwise pressure. There are very few high school seniors who cannot be happy, challenged and "fit" at a number of different schools. There are already too many who have the Dream School mania that comes from nowhere but rankings, social and unfortunately in some cases parental pressure. Anything which moves other kids into the My One Dream School camp is a bad thing.</p>
<p>For this reason, I am glad to see ED/SCEA fade away.</p>
<p>I, personally, am more concerned about how the college admissions process affects our kids than on how it will affect the yield of these highly selective schools and the ones at the next rung down. They'll all figure it out. They'll all have to adjust to the demographic changes coming down the pike when the echo boom diminishes. </p>
<p>If ED/SCEA will help these highly selective schools better navigate the Enrollment Management world and the loss of it will make their jobs more complicated, so be it. I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about the kids.</p>
<p>If the elimination of ED/SCEA results in their reneging on their need-blind policies, and recalibrating their financial aid budgets to favor merit vs need-based aid, then that is a choice they will have made. It is not a necessary end result.</p>
<p>Marian and I cross-posted and came at the same issue in different ways. Her daughter's situation is just exactly what I am talking about. Kids shouldn't have to be thinking this way about their college choices. It's not right.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm cynical, but I think there will be a new game. Students unwilling to risk P and H will apply early elsewhere. It will still be easier to get in RD anywhere if you are well-off and prepared. And new ways will be developed (and discussed here on cc) to demonstrate your top preference.</p>
<p>Frankly, one advantage of the early apps was that it got the top students at our school applying to a variety of places, so they didn't go toe to toe with one another for the most part. Now the fur will fly and senior year at many schools is not going to be very pleasant.</p>
<p>Is that really the atmosphere you expect at your high school?</p>
<p>As I said in my blog today, although I have no doubt that Harvard and Princeton are sincere in their desire to help low income students, I suspect that this may smack a bit of a pre-emptive move. Next week, Magaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education, will be issuing a long awaited report highly critical of colleges and universities for -- guess what? -- their accessibility and affordability. Many in academia have expressed worries about the federal government's push for greater regulation of higher education. It's a rather odd coincidence, methinks, that Harvard and Princeton, who both claim to have been "studying this issue for several years," suddenly made the announcements this week right before Spellings comes out and says that colleges need to be more accessible and affordable. And, isn't it also interesting that both kind of side-stepped the issue of whether this will be a permanent move? Of course, stranger things have happened, but if anyone thinks the timing is merely a fluke, I'd counter that Harvard and Princeton are smarter and more media-savvy than that. ;)</p>
<p>What is the basis for assuming that the end of SCEA or ED, respectively means the start of merit aid at these schools?</p>
<p>I think that this will lead to a windfall of applications to the top EA/SCEA school, y and s, but also slightly lesser schools like chicago and georgetown, as students who would have applied early to h or p would like to get into somewhere early. It might benefit the LACs to go EA instead, so that they could pick up the top students, the vast majority of whom would not get into h or p RD, but would not be willing to give up the dream by applying ED to another school</p>
<p>Carolyn:I disagree with you on this. I don't think Spellings is talking about merit aid vs. need-based aid but about the high cost of college in general which has outstripped inflation for the last few years. Although I do find interesting the speculation that a member of a Republican administration would try to curb market forces. </p>
<p>Afan: Merit aid is counter to affordability since it does not take into consideration financial need, at least as calculated by colleges. If most colleges increase merit aid, it will mean less aid for low income applicants. I'm pretty confident that S would have qualified for substantial amount of merit aid at many colleges. Instead, he applied to colleges that provide need-based aid only.</p>
<p>good post, jmmom. I am seriously glad my kid is past this.</p>
<p>Not sure about the best place to put this. Brown is one of the few schools thus far to declare that their ED program is staying. </p>
<p>ohio_mom, me too, me too. It is over for me and mine, but I would like to see the madness reduced.</p>
<p>Why people assume that need based student could not have stats? There are lot of studentns who have matching qualificantions and stats but have significantly lower financail resources to apply. They all could benefit in this process. This process would also allow poor students to try to excel themselves and apply to schools where they have never thought about in their wildest dreams.</p>
<p>I don't know Marite. I keep envisioning the news reports when Spelling's report comes out: "U.S. Secretary says colleges aren't accessible, affordable or accountable enough....But Harvard and Princeton, who recently did away with their early admissions programs in an attempt to increase accessibility, disputed her claims...."</p>
<p>I do agree with you on the irony of a republican administration pushing for greater regulation. But, of course, that's what he's been doing since he took office on the elementary and secondary school levels. "No child left behind" is about to become "No college student left behind."</p>