reason for deferment

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
41

<p>"Applying E.A. boosts an applicant's chances by 18.9 percent - the same amount that a 100-point jump on the SATs would - according to the book's statistical analysis of more than 500,000 actual admissions decisions. The effects of applying E.D. are even more drastic, giving an applicant a 34.8 percent boost, which corresponds to a 190-point SAT advantage."</p>

<p>"The Early Admissions Game," By Christopher N. Avery and Richard J. Zeckhauser, Andrew Fairbanks. The first two are Harvard professors the thirs is a former admissions officer from Wesleyan.</p>

<p>A study with 500000 observations is not little or no evidence. I have offered more evidence for this position than you have for most of the things you believe. For example, neither you nor NSM provided any evidence for the assertion that Harvard would not admit anyone EA unless it was 100% certain that the person would be admitted RD. You are free to dismiss all my evidence and continue to believe what you choose to believe but I cannot help that.</p>

42

<p>being deferred at harvard is a GOOD thing. harvard has less than 10% acceptance rate and 99% of the applicants are spectacular...i dont understand people even being phased at all by being deferred.</p>

43

<p>
[QUOTE]
"Applying E.A. boosts an applicant's chances by 18.9 percent - the same amount that a 100-point jump on the SATs would - according to the book's statistical analysis of more than 500,000 actual admissions decisions. The effects of applying E.D. are even more drastic, giving an applicant a 34.8 percent boost, which corresponds to a 190-point SAT advantage."

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>But I don't understand what that has to do with the topic, which is:</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
"the statement Harvard would not let anyone in EA unless it was certain that the person would get in RD is now beyond disingenuous, it is undeniably wrong."

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>If test scores were to be the basis of all admissions decisions, then Avery's assertion would make sense. However, it is not. A combination of different factors yield a decision and what factors are emphasized is dependent upon an individual admissions committee. Yes, in a broad sense, applying early admissions is statistically favored. For several colleges, applying early shows significant interest in the school and therefore an ED applicant is more favored.</p>

<p>Not so for Harvard. With an 80% yield rate on its admits, as NSM stated, Harvard appreciates that it is your first choice for college, but it will not sway an admissions committee decision than it will at UPenn or Dartmouth, for instance.</p>

<p>In addition, you must remember that, again, as I said in my first post on this subject, that the vast majority of SCEA applicants at Harvard again have higher test scores, higher grades and better extracurricular credentials because they were better informed about the college admissions process in the first place. Furthermore, as I stated before, many SCEA applicants have additional "tip factors," such as 1) legacy, 2) development, 3) athletics or some combination thereof.</p>

44

<p>I can't resist pointing out that the correct spelling is "hearsay," and the form of data described in the study and book about EA/ED admission is not hearsay evidence. (To me, the best way to refute the claims of the Harvard researchers about the advantages of applying early would be to open up the admissions data of the various top colleges to independent researchers, with suitable protection of the anonymity of individual application files. But so far no college has offered up its recent data to make a definitive case for its claims about its own admission practices.) I hope this is educational for the young people who are applying to college this year and next.</p>

45

<p>1) the avery et al study excludes what they called hooked applicants (legacies, athletes are described as hooked, i cant remember if development cases are included).</p>

<p>2) "But I don't understand what that has to do with the topic"</p>

<p>It has everything to do with the topic. When you are testing the hypothesis group A does better than group B you control for the observables and ask if candidate x from A does as well as similar candidate y in B. To disbute the study's conclusion you have to argue that among unhooked candidates with similar stats (ie gpa, test scores etc) the EAs have systematically better unobservables.</p>

46

<p>
[QUOTE]
It has everything to do with the topic. When you are testing the hypothesis group A does better than group B you control for the observables and ask if candidate x from A does as well as similar candidate y in B. To disbute the study's conclusion you have to argue that among unhooked candidates with similar stats (ie gpa, test scores etc) the EAs have systematically better unobservables.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>But The Early Admissions Game has similar fallacies that you state. Chris Avery's statistical studies do have some faults in them and it cannot control for all possible variables in the admissions process though it does make controversial points. </p>

<p>For example, an admissions committee can debate over a single line in an applicant's essay for over an hour - whether that kid is hooked or unhooked is beyond the question now, as admissions officers are now trying to see who the kid is for who he is, and not for some external variable, which in this case is the "hooked" versus "unhooked" debate (Though I would like to add that a "hook" is in the eye of the beholder). </p>

<p>In the end, admissions can't be boiled down to pure statistics. Why? It is a very humanistic process, and as we all know, we can't put a number value on a person. Again, for Harvard, EA does "advantage the advantaged" for several reasons that I have already outlined above.</p>

47

<p>Readers of this thread might be interested to read what Harvard's Dean of Admissions had to say about the book *The Early Admissions Gam*e when it first came out specifically how it does or does not pertain to the way Harvard conducts its admissions : <a href="http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050320.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050320.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

48

<p>That Havard magazine article is very nice. Two comments</p>

<p>1) Fitzsimmons says "Thus, although much of the book's general advice about applying early is valid, the effect of doing so may be less, perhaps considerably less, than the authors estimate."</p>

<p>Note that he doesn't say that there is no advantage to applying early. just that it is smaller than Avery et al indicate.</p>

<p>2) He refers to a study the Harvard admissions commitee did that showed
early applicants were stronger. However. neither the definition of "strength" nor the statitistical methodology is public, and there may be grounds for debate on both scores. We know exactly what Avery et al did, which is why it is possible to think of alternate hypotheses and other tests.</p>

49

<p>"At Harvard, we used two carefully matched samples of early and regular applicants — students with exactly the same academic, extracurricular, and personal credentials (as assessed by admissions-staff ratings, which are based on multiple readings of each application in its entirety, including interviews, teacher and counselor reports, and whatever other information an applicant wished to include: portfolios, scientific research, music tapes). Ultimately, our study showed why even the most sophisticated statistical analysis, expertly executed by the three authors, cannot take the place of reading applications. The matched samples revealed that just as our early-action pool overall is considerably stronger than our regular pool, those admitted early were simply better candidates than those who were not. Although these findings apply only to Harvard, they are consistent with the positive differences suggested by the Yale study and with the claims of a number of the admissions officers surveyed by Avery, Fairbanks, and Zeckhauser."</p>

50

<p>OdysseyTigger, this quote is not on point: (1) the question is not whether statistical analysis should replace committee work but whether statistical analysis can detect a preferential treatment of early applicants. (2) Since both the AFZ analysis and the "carefully matched samples" control for quality, the fact that the early applicant pool is of higher quality is also irrelevant. (3) Finally, of course the admitted students are better on average than those that were not. But that has nothing to do with anything?</p>

51

<p>This sort of IS the port. Does Harvard rate and rank or are they arbitrary in their selections?</p>

<p>Whether or not they rank CORRECTLY is a separate discussion from whether they lie when they say they only admit early those whom they know they will accept regular. That claim has to be evaluated strictly on Harvard’s own rankings.</p>

52

<p>Tokenadult - guilty as charged ☺</p>

<p>(the perils of not using Word)</p>

<p>as for the hearsay – I did say maybe ☺</p>

<p>still, was the work published first in a professional journal and subjected to peer review?
…and how specific was any of the work to Harvard such that it could even begin to be considered relevant evidence here…</p>

<p>Did the authors generate their own “objective” admission criteria used to measure the advantage of applying early. If so, did they test their criteria on the RD pools school by school to verify that it was in fact predictive of who would be ultimately admitted? </p>

<p>If they did not, how did they control for potential variance in their criteria vs. Harvard’s criteria. (Or did they assume that any such variances would occur equally RD and EA and examine whether there was a greater than expected variance EA versus RD.)</p>

<p>Did they frame the correct questions?</p>

<p>Did they conclude that “for any given student chances at EA are better than at RD” and “the statement Harvard would not let anyone in EA unless it was certain that the person would get in RD is now beyond disingenuous, it is undeniably wrong.”</p>

<p>Do such statements accurately represent the conclusions?</p>

53

<p>This analysis is off. Out of the ten applicants taken from my state, I know of two of them - one was a recruited athlete with SAT scores and grades that were no where as competitive as others who applied, and a development case where the family has been connected for generations and gave millions who would not have been a competitive candidate but for the connection. I am sure there were others who got special consideration. There are recriuited athletes, development cases, ect who are taken early and are NOT the stronger candidates. In your analysis you are not taking into account that all the development cases, legacies, recruited athltes for the most part apply early. Most or all of these BYPASS the regional admission officer. Not every one who is accepted early are the strongest academic appicants.</p>

54

<p>Stellar recruited athletes, development legacy applicants are examples of the kind of applicants who'd be at the top of the pool, 100% certain admissions even when the whole application pool was in.</p>

<p>The students whom admissions officers would be certain would be admitted even when the RD pool was considered are students who have outstanding characteristics of any kind that the admissions officers are looking for, and have difficulty finding.</p>

55

<p>Maybe so Northstarmon - However when only about 10 are taken in a state and about 7 of them are in the category of recruite athletes, development legacies ect, then at least for that state they are not the strongeset applicants. Maybe they are applicants the school would want in that they care about that legacy relationship ect. However I am not talking about development legacies who have stellar credentials. I am talking about development legacies who are so connected that they had no real extra curriculars inside of school or outside of school, no leadership, no passion, no athletetics of any significance - all they needed was to take a rigorous curriculum get pretty good grades and have SAT scores that were at the minimum range to be accepted.
As for the recruited athletes, many taken are not stellar. Coaches often take athletes who have higher SAT scores and who will sit on the bench so to speak and not really play so they can bring on a stellar athlete with suppar scores. So there are athletes who are above average who get in,</p>

56

<p>maybeinapril</p>

<p>wasn't your last "attempt" two pages ago? :)</p>

<p>Perhaps I am wrong, but to support your claim don't you have to "in effect" produce or identify the early admits who would not have gotten in RD.</p>

<p>If not, why not?</p>

<p>I don't really see why the matched samples are all. While they may be useful in trying to quantify the amount of an advantage, to they really help in showing that an advantage exists? Seems sort of like going for damages without first proving liability - at least to me. What am I missing?</p>

<p>How am I wrong (if Harvard ranked their applicants) in arguing that</p>

<p>IF Harvard admits lessor qualified students in the EA round (which is your claim, is it not) because of some EA advantage</p>

<p>THEN the deferred EA students ranked lower than the EA admits who would not get in RD should also not get in RD?</p>

<p>And how is it not significant that the Deferred EA pool is accepted at the same rate as the overall RD pool. What rate WOULD be significant to you?</p>

<p>Is it your contention that while Harvard may rank, they rank the two pools differently? If so, how.</p>

<p>You continue to bring up a residual EA advantage to those in the RD. Am I correct in stating that your further position is that (excepting those few who significantly upgraded their apps) the 200 or so EA deferees that Harvard admits in the RD round would not have been admitted had they applied RD? If this is misstated, please state it correctly.</p>

57

<p>collegebound</p>

<p>those applicants are not really part of this discussion. They are in regardless. EA clearly does not benefit them. Next year, they will get likely letters or some such. </p>

<p>the discussion here relates to the rest of the EA pool</p>

58

<p>For an aside, as a reason for deferment, about a week and a half before the 15th I got a call from the admissions office about my interview. Apparently, my interviewer (who is in his 90's) never sent in his review of me. They were calling to make sure I showed up for my interview, and I said yes, I had my interview with Mr. ******* on November 15, 2006. The caller seemed perplexed and said "Alright, that's all." Is there any way this could be a factor and can I request another interview now?</p>

59

<p>The admissions office will handle things. If another interview is needed, they'll arrange things. If the interviewer just needs to be reminded to get the interview in, they'll call him.</p>

60

<p>The most difficult piece of information for me to deal with are the 200 or so deferred EA applicants that get in EA. OdysseyTiger says:</p>

<p>"You continue to bring up a residual EA advantage to those in the RD. Am I correct in stating that your further position is that (excepting those few who significantly upgraded their apps) the 200 or so EA deferees that Harvard admits in the RD round would not have been admitted had they applied RD?"</p>

<p>Perhaps this is too strong (there will always be mistakes, changes of opinion etc besides upgrades) but yes something like that would go well with my position that EAs are favored. However, while I am confident that overall EAs are favored and have a lot of evidence and good arguments as to why you would expect colleges, including Harvard, to favor them, I have no direct evidence regarding the 200 deferred and later admitted applicants and no good argument as to why giving them what OdysseyTigger calls "residual advantage" would be a good idea (as opposed to admitting them early).</p>

<p>This particular problem notwithstanding, the direct evidence that EAs are favored is really strong: we have a rather substantial study by serious researchers, we have the fact that the president of Harvard admits to it, and the dean of admissions indirectly admits to it. It is also easy to see why colleges would benefit from favoring SCEAs: to get more SCEA and have first crack at the best candidates the following year. The only evidence on the otherside is the bold assertion by partisans and the faithful that Harvard would never do such a thing.</p>

<p>We may agree or disagree as to whether or not it is ok or understandable for Harvard to favor EAs. But arguments about the fairness or morality of favoring EAs are irrelevant to deciding the factual question as to whether or not Harvard in fact favors EAs.</p>

<p>Some CCers seem to want to dismiss any suggestion that colleges succumb to competitive pressures as conspiracy theories. You read indignant statements like "That just isn't so" or "Harvard doesn't do that" etc. To suggest that Harvard competes with Yale, Princeton, and other top schools and acts in accordance with the demands of this competition is not a conspiracy theory, it is how things work.</p>