It is a way to attract a certain segment of desirable candidates, but within that group, it makes sense to choose those who are more likely to attend (and defer those unlikely to attend until they get a better picture of the whole applicant pool). Never claimed that predictability was the sole criteria, otherwise, they would only use ED or at least accept a majority or more students ED
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One point I wanted to throw in - if a school has ED and EA, how popular is the ED option? And if it is not popular, then getting in EA is more realistic/feasible. I will give Macalester as an example as DS just applied. Macalester received about 230 ED1 apps, and 3100 EA apps. (These numbers were shared with 2022 students). The EA apps were an approx 10 percent increase over last year’s numbers. Even though Macalester has selective admissions (about mid 30’s), a strong student could feel somewhat confident in applying EA vs. ED. Other schools with a similar admission rate BUT with higher ED apps may require an ED app to have the same level of confidence of admission.
My guess is it’s hard for them to predict. Their yield is really low and that’s total…including ED. My guess is had they not had merit it’d be minuscule.
May be a great school but seems few are choosing it on it’s own merits.
Curious, does Macalester break out the acceptance rates of ED vs EA? We would need to know that (and some data of relative strength of pool and accepted students) to make any conclusions. Just having numbers/growth in a particular type of applications at most tells us how desirable that school is. A low ED/high EA ratio would indicate to me a good school (maybe nichee) that is a desirable backup.
Unfortunately many, if not most, applicants are unable to afford their EFC and a consequence of that is an inability to apply ED. I work with quite a number of students whose parents just won’t allow it, including full pay families who would much prefer their student get merit aid, or attend an in-state option.
In the big picture, only 6% of all apps were for ED in 2018 (the last year of data, at least in NACAC’s annual report). About 25% of schools offer ED, and average ED yield was 90%. https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/publications/research/2018_soca/soca2019_all.pdf
Certainly colleges understand that students have to build lists comprised of reaches, matches, and safeties. While I understand the desire to manage/increase yield (some AO staffers are even compensated on that metric), it is hubris on the part of colleges to think (or behave like) they are not going to be a match or safety for some students.
The consequence of this practice of yield management directly leads students to apply to more colleges because of the increased uncertainty of admissions. And the hamster wheel continues. Even more frustrating (and unacceptable) is that most applicants and their parents have no idea (or awareness) how to play the game they have been unknowingly inserted into.
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On the CDS it shows about a 60% acceptance for ED for the class of 2020. Interestingly, on Reddit lots of kids were reporting being denied/deferred from EA from Macalester, while for WPI, it was more overwhelmingly accepted. Tiny sample size of course, but I noticed it.
From a student point of view, multiple acceptances aren’t really useful. I don’t quite get the outrage that some top student wasn’t accepted to every college they applied to. There is a certain randomness to the process and there can and are denials and deferrals from targets and safeties too.
At the same time, the admissions process is too complex and not transparent at all.
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This is really the point I’ve been trying to make. Understanding what’s going on in the process – from the size and quality of the applicant pool, what colleges “end game” is, etc. – can help make sense of it.
I recall leaving our school’s first college counseling session for parents thinking I might vomit in the parking lot! I was woefully out of touch with what the system had evolved into since I had participated in it myself. But I also felt, by the time DS was applying - over a year later --, that all of us had pretty realistic expectations. It was still stressful and emotional, but we never were shocked or angry…
With that said, I also believe that I was in the very lucky minority in that DS attended a BS with excellent college counselors who had very reasonable case loads and the ability to really get to know the students and focus on fit (in every regard). A luxury for sure.
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Here we are talking about EA which is a one way option for the student once accepted. EA’s benefit for the school is attracting a greater number of applicants from which it can selectively recruit at an earlier stage, perhaps even offering merit inducement. True, the schools are playing a game to optimize who it can choose for its entering class, but parents who choose to go the EA route (vs ED or REA) are also engaging in gamesmanship in gathering the most academic and financial options, the earlier the better. I would also think that families that are savvy enough to use EA (or have the benefit of a counselor) probably also applied EA or rolling to one or more publics which less likely practice aggressive yield protection.
Aggressive yield management at the RD round where extremely qualified kids are denied because the school thinks the kid will reject them is more problematical for me (putting those kids on the WL seems to be a win/win for the school and for the kid). Agree that the sheer number of apps/reduced admissions rate/greater uncertainty and stress needs to be addressed. I think the most straightforward way to do this is to limit total apps to 10 or less, with 1 or 2 publics required. The problem isn’t a reduction in the number of seats available, but the number of applicants for each seat.
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If the schools are playing a game with their EA, as some of you seem to agree, it would be an extremely unfair game, wouldn’t it? The schools set the rules of the game, which they don’t even disclose. They’re dealing with applicants and their families, most of whom aren’t as sophisticated when it comes to college applications as some posters on CC. It’s hard to think in what other businesses this type of behavior is condoned.
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Uh most of them?
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Getting a job, getting cast in a play, auditioning to join a choral group or string quartet… literally dozens of situations where judgment is involved!!!
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I don’t think it fair to analyze the dynamic of college applications in terms of doing “everything right” or wrong without considering the perspective of both involved parties.
The student who applies early wants to have an acceptance early in exchange for the marginal effort of completing an application early. Big upside little effort from the perspective of the applicant. Yes they did “almost” everything right in broad terms but virtually nothing from the perspective of the college.
The term everything right could apply to ED as the ultimate display of interest. Surrendering optionality of choice in exchange for enhanced likelihood of acceptance is a more meaningful and equitable for both parties.
Yes application fees cost money and hiring qualified people to review them costs money. Free lunches don’t exist.
No one is obligated to apply ED and I don’t understand the offense taken by those deferred given their capacity to have applied ED to multiple schools, express interest as they get further results and respond to the available options as they emerge.
Typically to get something you have to give something.
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I think the thousands of applications that these schools review for admissions makes it a lot less personal and exacting then we think. Knowledge however, is power within college admissions. I recommend the book by Jeffrey Selingo, “ Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions”. I thought it provided a lot of information about the process and how schools review the thousands of applications they receive each year. We may not like the process but I found it helpful to understand the inner dynamics at play within college admissions.
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I’ve hired for big corporations for over 35 years. Every single day my recruiters make judgement calls as to who gets an offer and who doesn’t. The government has set guidelines- we can’t discriminate on the basis of race, gender, disability, veteran status, religion, etc. Period full stop. We can decide not to hire a well qualified candidate because he snapped chewing gum during an hour long interview with a senior vice president; we can decide not to hire a well qualified candidate because she stated on her resume that she was fluent in Mandarin, and when her interviewer switched into Mandarin she stumbled through a few easy questions (“did you have trouble finding the office?”) it was apparent she is NOT fluent in Mandarin. We can decide not to hire someone who canceled three interviews in a row with zero apology (not even “I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced your interviewers”) and can decide not to hire someone who brought their dog to the interview and told the receptionist “You’ll need to walk him in half an hour while I’m inside”.
All of these things are perfectly fine- “condoned” to use your word. We just can’t decide not to hire someone because she’s Latina, or because he’s a Vet, or because she has a hearing aid or because he’s Sikh.
Not understanding why you are so exercised about college admissions. Your kids entire life is likely going to be a series of other people deciding “yes” or “no”. What exactly is unfair about a college- in a competitive process- deferring, or rejecting a particular kid? Who goes into college admissions thinking they are going to get in everywhere??? Do you think you’re going to get hired by every company you interview at?
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I agree, it is a vicous circle of kids sending in as many as 20 apps, which makes the yield even more uncertain for the colleges, so they go to rely more on ED. There are a few threads here discussing the overenrollment and the problems it causes for housing, classes filling up, etc.
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It’s because this forum is primarily about college admissions. The point isn’t about whether admission decisions, like hiring decisions, are subjective. They are. It’s about whether these colleges should purposely mislead (or worse) unsophisticated consumers of their products. We have in this country, and other places, laws in many industries to protect them, because they’re vulnerable to such manipulative practices as a result of the asymmetry in information and sophistication.
I’m not sure what y’all are finding misleading. There is not a single college in the US which states that if you do X, submit Y, you will be admitted. Not a single one. Even the “open admissions” type colleges reserve the right to reject a kid who has been convicted of a felony, has a material omission on the transcript, etc.
You guys seem to expect that if a student meets some bar-- scores, grades, whatever, and applies early, there is some sort of secret handshake that results in an admission. And although there is asymmetry in information (just like in any application requiring some human judgment) the colleges DO NOT promise or imply that you’ll get an edge somehow if you jump through a specific hoop. It’s the kids- and their families- who look at the stats and contort them into something they are not. If the ED rate of admission is 20% and the regular rate of admission is 8%, no adcom in America is going to tell a particular kid that HIS rate of admission is meaningfully better if he applies early. Early includes recruited athletes, faculty children, and a bunch of other categories that do not apply to the average applicant.
So kids apply early and get deferred- OK, more applications to submit. Some kids apply early and assume they are a lock and EITHER get deferred or rejected- and then there is sadness and disappointment but the result is the same- more applications to submit.
Still not seeing the problem and not seeing how colleges are misleading. Especially for the mega competitive ones- an 8% admit rate is a 92% rejection rate. You don’t need to be “sophisticated” to understand that within that 92% pile are a HECK of a lot of capable, smart kids who could flourish at that particular college. And the colleges are upfront about that as well…
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What’s misleading?
Seems pretty clear this is non binding on the applicant so what are the damages to an applicant deferred to RD?
Sounds like you are alleging institutional fraud which requires two elements…
“Fraud is the use of dishonest methods to take something valuable from another person”
No dishonesty and nothing of value that I can identify.
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That’s an unfair accusation or you’re confusing two separate issues. That’s not what those of us who don’t condone such practices by a few colleges think. What we’re talking about is the practice of “offering an option” that is designed to purposely entice unsuspecting students to apply and mislead them into thinking that it’s truly an “option”. It isn’t.