Stanford's Argument Against Dropping EA

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
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<p>An excerpt: </p>

<p>"The admission rate is determined by two things: the standards applied and the qualifications of the applicants. If the early pool is, on average, more qualified, then applying precisely the same standard will result in a higher rate of acceptance.</p>

<p>At Stanford, we actually apply somewhat higher standards to our early pool, since we do not want to accept students early unless we’re confident they would get in during the regular round. This is reflected in the SAT scores for these students: they average 40 points higher than those of students admitted later. It is not, however, reflected in our early acceptance rate, which is indeed somewhat higher than in the regular round.</p>

<p>No doubt some schools give an advantage to early applicants. If so, they are advantaging those applicants; if not, not. The problem, in any event, doesn’t lie with early admissions programs but rather with the standards applied.</p>

<p>How about the assumption by critics that early programs are predominantly used by the wealthy? At Stanford, 36 percent to 40 percent of the students accepted early apply for financial aid; in the regular round only slightly more, 40 percent to 44 percent, seek aid. But even if our early pool were disproportionately well off, those applicants would not, as we have seen, get an admission advantage.</p>

<p>The final charge made by critics of early programs is that they increase the frenzy of the college admission process. This is certainly not true for those students who are clear about their first-choice college: they can apply to that institution early. If they get in, their admissions worries are over. If they do not, they can then submit applications to other schools, but are in no worse shape than if there were no early admission program."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/opinion/27etchemendy.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/opinion/27etchemendy.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Not mentioned is the real reason schools resort to early programs - their ability to goose the yield rate by reducing the size of overlap pools with their competitors. </p>

<p>This year, Stanford's SCEA yield approached 90%, while its RD yield was about 55% - resulting in an overall 69% yield rate.</p>

<p>Similarly, at Yale, the SCEA yield approached 90%, while the RD yield was about 54.5%. By filling a larger fraction of the class from the early pool, however, Yale was able to achieve an overall yield rate of about 70% - a bit higher than Stanford's. </p>

<p>(Yale also, reportedly, admitted 13% of the SCEA deferreds - a far higher rate than that for "ordinary" RD applicants - which probably had a beneficial effect on the RD yield rate.)</p>

<p>Finally, the author of the article fails to point out that Stanford - which offers more so-called "athletic scholarships" than any other school in America - doesn't need to shoehorn its athletic recruits into the early pool, as the Ivies do: it already has them tied up via "letters of intent" which, in most cases, have been sent months earlier. </p>

<p>Particularly when an adjustment is made for the fact that the 5% of the class getting athletic scholarships need not be in its early pool, it is clear that the admit rate for applicants with comparable SAT scores remains at least twice as high for SCEA admits as it does for RD admits. This stuff about the edge being due to early applicants being "stronger" is so much bull - as "The Early Decision Game" graphically demonstrated.</p>