Penn ED says you can only apply to rolling admissions and schools with early deadlines for scholarships.
The Penn ED Application is due November 1st, I believe.
Is a BS/MD considered a “scholarship?” BS/MD programs only have one deadline, and their decisions are often given much later than RD ones because of interviews, two institutions reading the app etc.
If one applies to UPenn ED, can they apply to let’s say UMiami BS/MD? UMiami is a non-binding 7 Year BS/MD program whose application is due November 1st, the same day as UPenn’s. So a student who applies to UPenn ED can’t apply to the UMiami BS/MD at all?
And what about BS/MD’s with November 15th deadlines? Those aren’t considered the same ED anymore, but still are “early” decisions vs the December RD deadline.
Can anyone help clear this up? Thank you so much in advance!
@f2000sa I am aware of that, thank you! However, I am asking if I apply to Penn ED, if I am still able to apply to a (separate) BS/MD program with an early application deadline, but not early application decision. Example: UMiami’s deadline for application is November 1st, the same as Penn ED. But UMiami’s BS/MD program is non-binding and the decision comes out later.
I was wondering if anyone knew the rules since this seems like an exception!
With ED, you’re allowed to apply to other non-binding programs simultaneously. BS/MD or BS – it doesn’t matter.
As long as you know and are prepared to withdraw your UMiami BS/MD application should Penn accept you. Are you 100% willing to do that? If so, then you can apply to both. If not, then you shouldn’t apply ED to Penn.
You cannot simultaneously apply to Penn under our Early Decision program and another college/university under their early notification program, including Early Decision, Restrictive Early Action (also known as Single-Choice Early Action), or Early Action. There are limited exceptions:
You may apply to any public college/university that offers non-binding rolling admissions.
You may apply to any foreign college/university.
You may apply to any college/university with non-binding early deadlines for scholarships.
Penn’s Early Decision program supersedes any other early notifications. If you are admitted to Penn, then you are expected to enroll.
An applicant’s affiliation with Penn, either by being children or grandchildren of alumni, is given the most consideration through Early Decision.
Is this a new policy? Previously students who applied ED to Penn, could apply EA elsewhere. (Not REA or SCEA, but definitely EA to places like UChicago, Villanova, MIT, Caltech, etc.) Of course if admitted to Penn ED, they would have to attend Penn and withdraw their other applications. So I am SHOCKED to read what’s posted above. Anyone know anything about this?
@T26E4 Thank you! This is exactly the information I was looking for. I will definitely have to think whether Penn or another school is my top choice. Luckily, I still have another year to decide. I just did some digging and at least the UMiami BS/MD allows students to choose “Regular Decision” on the common app even though the actual application is due Nov. 1. There’s a few others that I will need to look into specifics.
@f2000sa yes, I saw this! I just wasn’t sure if a program that required an early application with a non-early decision was permitted. It seems that they are! Thank you!
Why would Penn prevent simultaneous EA applications? The other two make sense. You cannot apply to two ED programs and the SCEA schools already prevent you from applying ED. The only reason I can think of is that maybe Penn is losing a bunch of their ED admitted kids for financial reasons to a set of EA schools because some students are turning down the ED offer for financial reasons as soon as they get an EA offer and then start shopping. Anybody know of any other reason?
I can’t think of any reason - even the reason @veryluckyparent proposed seems like it would affect a very small group of applicants since, from what I’ve heard, Penn’s financial aid is pretty good - not sure which EA schools are giving significantly more? Maybe Penn wants to reduce ED applicants so they take less than 54% of the class during the ED round? I do think this policy will make the ED pool stronger because students who were throwing in a “what the heck” ED application while applying to 10 others EA, won’t want to be closed out of their EA apps. But still not sure how this helps Penn. And I don’t think there’s any other school in the country that has a “restrictive” ED - feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Or if anyone sees Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown or Columbia decide to adapt the same policy. Ugh.
@desie1 This may not be about Penn’s financial resources.
Looks like the admission folks at Penn have done some analysis and have found the following type of candidate in their pool
The student who really thinks they have a shot at HYPS but are unwilling to take the chance with SCEA. This kind of student applies ED to Penn and to one or more of the following EA schools: Chicago, MIT, Caltech. On Dec15th they get a favorable admit decision from both Penn and one or more of the EA schools. They immediately turn around and decline Penn, either because their aid package is not as good as the other schools, or more likely, because now they have an alternative high prestige school in their hand to aim higher. This student then applies RD to HYPS and some other schools like Duke or Vanderbilt that are known to give out merit aid. If this student gets in, they take that offer and decline the EA school. If they don’t they still have a pretty solid EA school to go to or maybe a little more merit money from a non-Ivy school. All in all a fairly good outcome, without violating the ** letter of the ED contract** and without taking too much risk.
I think Penn wants to remove these students from its ED pool or force their hand. This is the only scenario I can think of where disallowing EA makes sense from the schools perspective. They feel that allowing candidates to apply to EA schools is lowering their ED yield.
@VeryLuckyParent That’s interesting…do you know this for a fact? What was Penn’s ED yield over the last few years? I just think this type of scenario would involve very few kids. It is hard to imagine that this would be the impetus for Penn to make the change.
@desie1 No. I am just speculating, letting my imagination run wild. I can’t think of any other reason why they would do this. I think they may be targeting this move at rich international kids from certain Asian countries ( Where prestige is king and trumps everything else), but that is also speculation on my part.
I would think that of all the schools at Penn this will have the most impact on Engineering, eliminating people from also applying EA to MIT, Caltech, Case Western, Tulane, Miami, and Northeastern. Obviously the MIT and Cal Tech students are the ones they want to snag with ED and I’m sure way more students followed through with their commitment than played games. Is this another case where the majority of good kids are punished for the actions of a few bad apples? From the initial posting that only allowed EA from rolling admission schools it feels like this was a hasty decision on Penn’s part and it was not well thought out. I’m holding out hope that complaints and adcoms visits to sites like these might sway them to change the policy again before applications officially open in a few weeks. My kid was deciding to ED at Penn or Columbia and leaning Penn but with this change won’t apply and had she gotten into MIT or Cal Tech she would/will happily attend her ED school. Maybe their yield will improve a fraction of a percent but I would bet their stats will fall.
@acdchai This doesn’t affect applying to Cal Tech, Miami, or Tulane because those schools all offer the Stamps Scholarship (also Tulane offers its own scholarship) which requires students to apply EA to be considered… so under the new rules students applying to Penn would also be allowed to apply to Cal Tech, Miami and Tulane.