<p>Place your votes here. ED is immoral and inequitable and downright unfair. EA is the way to go.</p>
<p>What evidence do you have that it is “immoral” and “inequitable”? Why is EA that much better? (Approx. half the students at highly selective colleges are full pay, so they have no need to compare finaid offers…)</p>
<p>I believe ED exists to benefit the institution, and not the student. But colleges have a right to sell their product through whatever marketing schemes they want–just like airlines have the right to sell first class seats.</p>
<p>The only thing about it that is immoral is when they try to say in their recruiting propaganda that it is to the student’s benefit.</p>
<p>^Well, it is, because if you get in then you don’t have to worry about college apps and college acceptances for the remainder of your senior year.</p>
<p>even coming from a school that practices ED, I can’t see how ED is in any way superior to EA from a student’s perspective. I think early admission programs are great, because they significantly reduce the number of applications RD, applicants get to exercise a first choice preference and let colleges know this, colleges can pin point those truly interested in studying with them etc. but EA vs. ED, I’m still not seeing the case for ED.</p>
<p>ED is immoral because it favors the wealthy. If you don’t need to apply for financial aid, then you simply submit your ED application and you are done with it, or many also submit EA applications and RD applications and then tell those schools no thanks if the ED school comes in. Schools that accept ED applications say that financial aid is needs blind and they don’t consider it. Wrong. That is a blatant misstatement of the truth. They do. </p>
<p>EA on the other hand doesnt tie anyone down, doesnt favor wealthy over financial aid applicants and gives the school a clear indication of a students high level of interest. Its more fair and equitable. Many schools opt for this choice, and it also reduces the number of RD applications. </p>
<p>Yes, its my opinion. You can agree or disagree. But if it were up to me, I would ban ED applications and policies.</p>
<p>“Outlawed”? Whatever for? If a college wants to admit 100% of their class early decision, or if it wants to privilege full-pay, well, they have that right. If you don’t like it, don’t apply to that school.</p>
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<p>Life favors the wealthy. If you are wealthy you can drive nice cars, live in a nice house, own a vacation home, wear nice clothes and never have to worry about being hungry. There isn’t anything immoral about it.</p>
<p>If you don’t like the way private colleges (read: businesses) operate, feel free to avoid giving them your money.</p>
<p>I think ED is perfectly fine if a student loves a school so much. There was a time when I wished MIT had ED instead of EA because it was, without a doubt, my first choice and I would gladly choose MIT instead of any other school on this earth. Many other students feel this way about many other unis. It’s all a matter of choice.</p>
<p>I saw from your page that you’re actually a parent. Do you perhaps believe this because your D/S applied to a school ED and didn’t get in?</p>
<p>It’s all about choice. If you don’t like ED, don’t apply ED or to a school that has ED. If you do, then great. It’s a private universities’ right to have ED and see which students are really committed.</p>
<p>^ Exactly, these are businesses which have the right to do whatever they want.</p>
<p>i don’t see a problem with it. if you can’t afford it (really can’t afford it), then most schools will let you out of the contract, no? so what’s the problem? you get the benefit of showing interest and showing that that school is your top choice because of the binding part, but you can also say “whoops, no thanks” if you can’t pay for it, which seems to be your main issue. you also can’t be mad that colleges cost so much money – don’t apply to schools you don’t think you’d be able to afford. is it fair? no. but what makes you entitled to go to a $50k school? nothing. if you get great aid, awesome, go for it. if you don’t, well you knew the sticker price when you applied. </p>
<p>ED is good for people who have their minds made up and who really love the school. sometimes money comes into play, but many selective schools who really want particular students to come will work with you to make that happen.</p>
<p>i think there should be rolling admissions everywhere…much more fair to applicants</p>
<p>Thank goodness we live in a country where such a law couldn’t be passed.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of ED, but I’m also glad that such laws couldn’t pass.</p>
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<p>Why couldn’t you EA to MIT and then if accepted, tell them that you’re coming, and then you’re done? How would that really be any different from ED?</p>
<p>I don’t think this is something you can “out law” but if I were starting a college, I would only have EA and would not have ED because it’s better for the student. (after spending so much time on this forum)</p>
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For top colleges, I agree with you. Many top schools are pretty blunt about ED conferring an advantage.</p>
<p>For less selective schools, it can be a different matter. Colleges have limited amounts of money. Out of the 2700 colleges in the US, very few are need-blind. An even smaller number - less than 50 according to the last COFHE report - are both need-blind and promise to meet full need. For many schools, ED allows them to fill 40-50% of their classes with students who both genuinely want to be there and don’t need (much) financial aid, enabling them to give better financial aid to RD admits. </p>
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SCEA may be the way to go, rather.</p>
<p>For a comparison of EA and ED, one need only look at Brown. Brown offered EA when I was in high school; currently it offers ED. It simply got flooded with entirely too many applicants.</p>
<p>The early action admission process became inefficient, said Michael Goldberger, Brown University director of admission. “Clearly, we are now evaluating application materials from thousands of students who have not yet narrowed their sights on Brown and two years ago would not have applied early,” he said in a press release. “We have, in effect, simply moved the regular admission process several months forward,” he added.</p>
<p>Rice is another example, which stopped offering interim decision (its form of EA) in favor of ED.</p>
<p>*Munoz said the enrollment office ceased to offer interim decision because the three decisions were exhausting application reviewers, who had between Feb. 18 and April 1 to accept or reject regular decision applicants.</p>
<p>“We came to the conclusion that with the significant increase in the applicant pool that we expect to achieve, the number of decisions that we are going to make are going to be significantly increased,” Munoz said.*</p>
<p>Lately schools have even been suffering from a ballooning RD applicant pool.</p>
<p>*Nearly two decades ago, before Duke had become an internationally renowned research institution, the University crafted a personalized admissions process to evaluate prospective students. Designed to handle 12,000 applications, the model entails multiple readers, a preliminary rating system, a committee session to discuss applicants and a final review process. Now, with 26,731 high school seniors applying to the Class of 2014, the system is beginning to show signs of strain. Although the decades-old admissions model served to select this year’s class, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag said the process was not made for today’s hyper-competitive college admissions environment.</p>
<p>In 2006, Guttentag estimated that the top 5 percent and the bottom third of the applicant pool were sent to him to be either automatically admitted or automatically denied, respectively. This year, admissions officers collectively recommended that more than half of the applicants be denied without review in committee, Guttentag said.*</p>
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For an example of that, one should look at Michigan. With its move to the Common App, it switched from its former rolling admissions to a more typical EA schedule, expecting a larger flood of applicants (which seems likely). Rolling simply isn’t feasible with huge numbers of applicants.</p>
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<p>Admissions to highly selective colleges, by definition, favors the wealthy.</p>
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<p>Incorrect. The wealthy also tend to apply EA. (They are better counseled to get apps in early, etc.)</p>
<p>The University of Washington has abandoned rolling admissions effective with this 2010-2011 admissions cycle.</p>
<p>[uwnews.org</a> | UW moves to new admissions process | University of Washington News and Information](<a href=“http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=58381]uwnews.org”>http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=58381)
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<p>It might also be a bit harder for wealthy students to get in RD in a university with ED. That’s what I would do. Not explicitly, like, “OUT WITH THE RICH KIDS”…but if you already got four white kids from Phoenix who play varsity sports and do student government, then why would you need more of them, who aren’t guaranteed to come? And so the the seven white RD applicants from Phoenix who play varsity sports and do student government are suddenly competing for your two remaining “white kids from Arizona” spots, it’s harder for them to get in. While none of the nine poor Hispanic students from Phoenix applied ED in case they couldn’t afford it, so they’re competing for five spots for them. (Or whatever.) And so the admit rate for poor demographics RD will be somewhat higher than the admit rate for wealthy demographics, because the university filled much more of its wealthy slice than its poor slice ED.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, that is my plan 
However, a student who isn’t as certain about his top choice could easily apply EA to multiple schools, which wouldn’t be fair to students who are applying early to a school that is definitely, without a doubt, their number one choice. Look at Warbler’s post about what happened at Brown.</p>
<p>@Siglio…Rolling admissions isn’t fair to a student who wants to be 100% surrounded by high achievers, since colleges would go “Oh…SAT 2100? No volunteer work or awards? That’s alright, he’s up to our standards” <em>admit for last spot available</em> <em>Siemens Finalist comes along</em> “No more space left? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-” And, in that scenario, it also wasn’t fair to another student.</p>