I agree that the ED rules benefit the school. If you don’t want to do it, if you don’t want to do it and your application is strong, go RD. That is what we did.
I am saying that if you apply ED, you should follow the rules. People doing what you think is great have now harmed other applicants. That is not great to me.
I thought that ED at Penn and other colleges was already restrictive enough and that Penn’s yield each year was already great. I wonder which other colleges will now follow Penn in creating more and more application restrictions. The arms race in college admissions and rankings is getting ridiculous.
I hope that prospective applicants will ask Penn Admissions about what prompted this change in its ED policy when they visit the campus this summer and fall. I would love to hear the spin on that answer. Please share what you learn.
By the way, who really cares if it’s Penn or UPenn or PENN?
@Much2learn said:
“I am saying that if you apply ED, you should follow the rules. People doing what you think is great have now harmed other applicants. That is not great to me.”
If that’s the case, Much2learn, why does Penn still allow students to apply early to public schools that offer merit aid? Wouldn’t these applicants still be able to “break” the rules in the exact same way as those who received merit aid at a private school did last year?
Penn’s new policy is puzzling, because it STILL doesn’t fully stop applicants from “breaking” the rules, no?
Further, let’s unpack this a little more. Why does UPenn care (to the extent that they needed to change policy) about the TINY subset of students good enough to get merit scholarships at top private schools who then turn down Penn ED? Let’s say (optimistically) that 15 students in the pool did this last year.
Did UPenn change the policy out of some indignant outrage that .08% of its accepted students decided to “break” the rules? Was this tiny subset of students really so powerful as to “harm the many” in the greater group?
Given all the scholarship/news out there about the cynical, zero-sum game of college admissions (look at the article I linked to above, read Jerome Karabel’s work on admissions at Harvard et. al., follow articles in the Wash Post and NY Times, etc.), your lack of skepticism here is worrying.
I can hardly fault that tiny subset for making a decision that was best to them, and arguably staying within the grey area of determining one’s best “financial need.” Penn’s decision to take insult with the actions of this minuscule fraction, however, certainly deserves blame.
Finally, you know who is making the admissions process “not great”? It’s not the 15-20 kids a year who opt out of the ED agreement. It’s the schools themselves - with Penn and Chicago being the frontrunners in needless shenanigans.
“merit (in many forms) should be the primary factor in an admissions decision.”
Indeed many forms. Private schools’ number one concern is self preservation; they seek to maintain their cultures which make them attractive to their respective bases. Classes are crafted. Objective statistical measures may be as low as 20% of admission criteria.
Why would schools voluntarily do anything that doesn’t benefit themselves?
^ Yet students participate because of the benefits they enjoy. Benefits on both sides, why the system works.
Private universities are nonprofit orgs, no? By definition, they are supposed to benefit the public at large - that’s why they have tax-exempt status.
(In practice, of course, universities are as self-serving as any other type of org. There’s now frustration boiling over about this, though - as you see in criticisms of U endowment spending and tax-exempt status.)
^ Absolutely self-serving: Self preservation, to continue their mission indefinitely.
It’s practical for colleges to manage their yield, just like it’s rational for a wedding planner to want reliable RSVPs.
@Cue7 I actually think it may appeal to more students now bc of the “exclusivity” effect…And lets be honest they do meet real need.
Not for my D. She was deciding between Penn, Columbia, and Chicago for EA/ED. With this new approach, Penn has dropped to RD if necessary.
The losers from this rule change are applicants who are rejected from Penn. Those applicants could have applied EA to more schools before.
That suggests to me that applicants may be slightly fewer, but will probably tend to stronger, and more committed to Penn. If you aren’t confident, you won’t do it.
@Cue7 No, nonprofits are not necessarily for public benefit. They just have a purpose other than making money. It may or may not be for public benefit. Churches for example benefit their members, not the public.
I don’t think the admissions system is great, but people who don’t like it should work to change the process, not cheat the process. Cheating the process may make you feel good, but it will cause more problems.
@Hebegebe “Not for my D. She was deciding between Penn, Columbia, and Chicago for EA/ED. With this new approach, Penn has dropped to RD if necessary.”
Those are three very different schools. If this helps her decide which is a better fit for her, that is great.
Again, it’s already been established that breaking ED because of financial expectations not being met is NOT cheating.
Chicago feels different from the others, I agree, with the whole “life of the mind” approach. And I suppose Columbia is the only one with a strictly specified core. However all three provide ample opportunities for her intended major, and are in major cities, which she likes. She could be happy applying early toany of these.
@suzyq7 “Again, it’s already been established that breaking ED because of financial expectations not being met is NOT cheating.”
The only outcome achieved by students dishonestly saying they will attend if need is met, and and then taking the best merit package instead is the tightening of the rules that you are seeing now.
It is dishonest, at a minimum and I suspect many of these situations are cheating, but the school chooses not to enforce the rules by suing the student. That means that everyone loses. Now all applicants can send out fewer EA applications. Additionally, I would not be surprised if it impacts the application of younger siblings. Why take the parents word a second time?
Again, if think you can’t live with the ED terms, just do not apply.
@hebegebe “Chicago feels different from the others, I agree, with the whole “life of the mind” approach. And I suppose Columbia is the only one with a strictly specified core. However all three provide ample opportunities for her intended major, and are in major cities, which she likes. She could be happy applying early toany of these.”
Columbia is great. D was admitted to Columbia too and we did attended admitted student days at both.
The key differences for DD were:
You will get an amazing education at either school. They are just a little different. I would have been very happy no matter which one she decided.
I’ve been thinking about the numbers, and I’m still confused by this. You’ve argued that UPenn changed its policy because a few (those ED admits who took merit schollys elsewhere) harmed the many. The “few” however in this case are a minuscule - near irrelevant - part of Penn’s ED pool. As the ED yield rate is usually between 98-99%, and some ostensibly opt out for legit reasons (an unforeseen medical emergency, unexpected, heightened expenses or a change in family financial circumstance), maybe 0.5% of ED admits - maybe 5-10 - “cheat” as you say.
On the other hand, I’d wager that THOUSANDS of ED applicants applied EA to some other private school. Of the 5k+ ED applicants, its perfectly reasonable to think 1000+ applied EA to some private school.
Why would Penn limit the options of thousands to prevent the actions of a tiny fraction?
Put another way, wouldn’t a better policy be: “ED applicants can apply to any school that offers (non-restrictive) EA. Admitted ED applicants, however, CANNOT, opt out of their ED agreement because of merit scholarships received at other institutions.”
Wouldn’t this curb the behavior of the 0.5%, and also be more fair to the, say, 40%+ of applicants who apply EA to some private school?
In this case, I stand by my earlier statements - UPenn seems to be a petty arbiter here, and is using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.
Has anyone called the Penn Director of Admissions and asked why this new ED policy was instituted? I would love to hear the answer. It does seem like overkill.
@Cue7 "Put another way, wouldn’t a better policy be: “ED applicants can apply to any school that offers (non-restrictive) EA. Admitted ED applicants, however, CANNOT, opt out of their ED agreement because of merit scholarships received at other institutions.”
Based on what I know, I think you have a good idea. You should send Dean Furda a note and propose it. The only drawback that I can imagine is the lack of an effective way to enforce it.