I don’t think Harvard would want to go RD-only either, even if everyone else did it, because of the signaling effect SCEA provides that a student will enroll there, as opposed to one of the other single-letter schools. Under the current regime, in December Harvard probably knows who close to half of the individuals in the class will be, since they probably get around a 90% yield on their SCEA admits (based on the fact that Harvard’s where those kids used their bullet). This enables Harvard to shape the rest of the class fairly precisely in the RD round. Why would they trade that for a jump ball for the entire class with everyone else in the spring? Even if Harvard won on cross-admits with everyone else, since no student had had to express a preference in the fall, they’d have much less of a handle on exactly who they’d get.
Well USC only has RD. So they already live with that and seem to do just fine. If a kid gets into Harvard and likes Harvard better than USC, so be it. But USC is likely use some nice merit money (which Harvard won’t do) to see if it can poach the kid away from Harvard that way.
Today Chicago also loses the kid accepted at Harvard to Harvard in most circumstances. In fact, Chicago’s RD and ED2 are perfectly positioned to suck up the kids who get turned DOWN by Harvard SCEA (not to pick off the kids who get into Harvard).
The only kids Chicago today takes away from Harvard are Chicago ED1-ers who game the better odds of Chicago ED1 over the odds of SCEA at Harvard. And kids who just love Chicago. But few of those Chicago kids would have gotten into Harvard (since Harvard SCEA admit rate is 14%). But since those kids never apply to Harvard, we never find that out for sure.
I really can’t imagine that UChicago or USC are ‘stealing’ many (if any) H-capable applicants by virtue of having an Early program. It could only plausibly make sense if that girl in your example applied ED to Chicago. But if she really was H material and interested in H, she’d do EA (not ED) to UChic and then apply to H RD and still end up at H. As pointed out above, USC only has RD, so she’d still end up at H.
I suppose you have a case that some students apply ED to schools that are a little below their capability. Like applying ED to CMU when they could have gotten into Cornell, or something. Yes in an RD-only world that kid might end up at Cornell, bumping an almost-as-good student from Cornell to the opening at CMU. We really are splitting hairs here.
RD-only would open the floodgates to many more apps for colleges, deprive colleges of knowing the truly-in-love kids, and add many more apps and anxiety to those kids who were capable of an Early acceptance. Early programs enable a second chance for students who mis-aimed, as @JHS points out, which is also very valuable to families.
It is unproven that an RD only system or and unrestricted EA system would increase the overall number of apps.
Because ED rates at these schools (although higher than RD rates) are still quite low. So yes, you get fewer apps from the smaller group of kids who hit the target in ED or SCEA. But then you get LOTS of RD apps from the majority of kids who miss the ED/SCEA target.
And since ED drives down the admit rates lower than they would be in an RD only system, it is reasonable to expect that the RD kids in an ED/RD system will file even more apps than they would in RD only. Seems logical to me (though initially counter-intuitive) that ED results in an overall increase in the number of apps. Or the same number of apps that you’d see with an RD only system.
Having said that, there are lots of benefits to having an early stage. But you just have to keep the early stage from overwhelming and messing up the RD stage.
“RD-only would open the floodgates to many more apps for colleges, deprive colleges of knowing the truly-in-love kids, and add many more apps and anxiety to those kids who were capable of an Early acceptance.”
I think RD only and open EA would not cause this to happen. But I’d suggest TCEA as the best way to make an incremental move. You can do three (“Triple”) EA apps rather than just one. That would keep the early round under control. There’s no reason you can’t have something in between SCEA and unrestricted EA.
@northwesty you still haven’t explained why RD-only would reduce apps.
Take Penn, the notorious ‘abuser’ of ED. Their RD accept rate is 7.9% and their overall accept rate is 9.9%. So if they went RD-only, all those early apps would be in the RD pool and Penn would accept 9.9% to fill the class. 2 percentage point improvement is not going to change anyone’s application strategy. 98% (at least) of the applicants will get the same decision. Furthermore, that 2% includes all those hooked athletes, legacy, etc who are still going to be admitted, so your unhooked child is even less likely to see any meaningful change in her chances under RD-only.
Please point out the flaw in my argument.
As I said before, I still like your TCEA solution.
Let’s assume that in RD only, every kid would send in 10 apps. Assume 10 kids. So the baseline for an RD system is 100 total apps. Let’s also assume a 20% admit rate across the whole system. So on average each kid sends in 10 apps to get 2 accepts. 20 admissions to fill 10 seats, so yield is 50%.
Now let each kid instead do one binding ED app. The ED admit rate is boosted to 30% and the yield on those offers is 100%. Let’s see what happens.
The ED round produces 10 ED apps which turn into 3 admits and 3 enrollees.
That leaves 7 kids in the game who have to do RD apps. But the KEY question is how many apps do they have to send in now to get the same chance as they would in all RD?
If they all still do 9 apps, that’s 73 total apps (10+63) and a savings vs. RD only. But I don’t think they do that.
Because they should feel the need to do a few MORE apps. Since some of the available spots are already taken and we know the admit rate for the back end RD is going to be lower than the 20% they’d face in RD only.
If the kids do 13 RD apps (instead of 9), then total apps are 101. One more than RD only.
So the analysis is incomplete if you just look at the apps saved by the one-appers who are successful in ED. Those savings are offset by increased RD apps from the other remaining kids. Without quantifying the RD apps increase effect, you can’t say if ED increases apps. Or decreases apps. Or is a wash.
But my intuition is that the Powerball game we see in RD is a cycle – low odds lead to more apps; which leads to lower odds; which leads to even more apps…
The schools WANT many, many, many students to apply. They get more money from application fees, get a larger selection pool and an increase in selectivity. Why in the world would they want to limit application numbers? Otherwise, why do so, so, so many schools (including HYPSM) send out tons of marketing materials to students that have no shot at being admitted? This is exactly how UChicago moved up the rankings. They don’t want to change the system, regardless of or (perhaps more accurately) because of the boost it provides to full pay applicants.
@northwesty I think your flaw is “feel the need to do a few MORE apps.” Your 7 remaining slots are being fought for by just 7 remaining kids now. It’s a wash. Their chances are the same; their strategy will be the same.
Actually it might even be better: If that 50% yield stays constant, then the colleges need to send 14 acceptance letters to fill 7 seats from the 63 apps. 14/63=22% acceptance rate.
18 – there’s many many drivers of ever increasing apps.
But I was just responding to the idea that one reason why we have to keep ED is because otherwise the number of apps would explode if we got rid of ED.
I thinks apps are going up regardless. And I think ED is more of an app increaser than decreaser. But I can’t prove that.
@18yrcollegemin I really don’t think colleges are making any money off the application fees. But I do think colleges like to look desirable by having lots of applications. Chicago’s biggest jump in application numbers came from moving to the Common Application. When my son applied and got in EA - they did an unbelievable amount of marketing to get him to like Chicago (calendar, scarf, book of convocation speeches etc.) He didn’t get that much ahead of applying. There are also many more internationals applying to US colleges these days.
“@northwesty I think your flaw is “feel the need to do a few MORE apps.” Your 7 remaining slots are being fought for by just 7 remaining kids now. It’s a wash. Their chances are the same; their strategy will be the same.”
Pick – my illustration is very simplistic. The real question is more psychological rather than mathematical. What behavior does a kid who misses out in ED actually do in the face of the anectdotal evidence of low single digit RD acceptance rates. Does the kid send more apps or the same apps than he would in an RD only system that had higher admit rates? Hard to quantify the net impact for sure.
I don’t doubt there are a lot of psychological games and illusions floating around and perpetuated by blogs and ‘experts.’
At the end of the day, one’s chance of getting into ____ college is virtually unaffected by the presence of an Early program, and is also virtually unaffected by whether this year’s seniors are sending in 5 apps or 15 apps on average.
See my Penn analysis in #484: 8% of applicants are sure-bets and 90% are rejected. The remaining 2% may play musical chairs with slots at other colleges, but with essentially equivalent students. Eliminate ED? Those percentages don’t change. Double the number of apps per student? Those percentages don’t change. (because doubling apps must necessarily mean the yield is halved on any acceptance).
It’s a zero-sum game. There are about 23K freshman beds in the Ivies and probably 150K kids applying for for them. Change Early rules or number of apps, and pretty much the same 23K kids will be in those rooms. A relatively small number of kids may be bumped by a similar kid, but there is no way you can make it significantly easier for a large population to get admitted. There is simply a fixed number of beds.
Pick – I totally agree that in most cases the system does not change the outcome. You’ll mostly get the same kids (or very similar kids) enrolled at the same schools with or without ED. Harvard will always wind up with the strongest group of kids no matter what. So then why do the schools have this convoluted system?
It is not so Penn can get more strong kids vs. Harvard. It is not so Penn can get filled up with the more Penn-loving kids than they’d otherwise get. It is not so Penn can better do the math to manage enrollment yield. I see only two reasons:
- To get more full payors.
- To manage/manipulate yield and admit numbers for ranking purposes.
I think there’s easier ways to manage #1. And I think #2 is dumb. So we could easily live without ED and get to the same place with less stress and gaming. ED is not necessary. But no school has an incentive to unilaterally disarm. So ED persists – tragedy of the commons/prisoners dilemma.
I do believe the colleges are making money off the application fees…lots of it. The fees for applying to UCLA are $70 per domestic application, $80 for international applications. They received over 102k applications this year (no EA, ED). That’s well over $7 million (not accounting for international or fee waivers). How many readers do they have? 50? 100? more? With 50 readers, that’s over $140k each. I don’t know exactly the process or the number of people reading apps, but I doubt they are losing money with increased apps. Other schools have similar application fees – some higher, some lower. If they get more applications than anticipated, they hire more readers (and/or raise the application fee the next year).
Exactly, which is why the following point makes no sense, that"then better schools get better students".
Sure, a handful of students who otherwise would have ED’s to Penn, Northwestern, Duke or Dartmouth would get into Harvard instead, and they likely would move to Cambridge. But here’s where the simple math works: Such former ED wannabes who are now attending H instead are also displacing the handful of of top students who would have gotten into H otherwise (SCEA or RD). Those H-wannabes will then matriculate to Penn, Northwester, Duke or Dartmouth (and Chicago, and…)
The point is that there are only so many “better students” to go around. So what if the sorting had mixes them differently amount the to ~20 Unis of the world. Is society gonna be worse off one way or another?
“ED3”?
I had heard of ED1 and ED2, but now I find out there is “ED3,” too. Here is how it works:
- Kiddo applies RD to school.
- School reviews app and sends Kiddo an email at the end of January with the option to “convert the app from RD to ED2.” Just sign and return the attached ED Agreement form.
- School says they will notify Kiddo of their decision on Feb 6 along with the rest of the ED2 decisions.
Conclusions:
- School liked Kiddo’s app, but they would rather not compete for it.
- Odds of admission to school via RD might well go down if Kiddo doesn’t take the school up on their “ED3” offer.
- @Northwesty is right about the endgame here – with “innovations” like these, at some schools the admissions mix will be 80% ED before very much longer.
@RustyTrowel I’m just shaking my head reading that - wow. Are you able to identify the school?
@DeepBlue86: I am still shaking my head reading the email from the school.
But this thread is really about how the changing landscape of the admissions process influences applicant application strategy, not so much the dynamics at any particular school. So consider the following. In a world with “ED3,” why not an “ED0” that works like this:
– Kiddo applies over the summer between junior and senior year (using the same end-of-junior year grades that would be available on an ED1 application).
– College reviews the app and provides a decision by, say, September of senior year.
– If denied, Kiddo could then apply ED1 or ED2 (or “ED3”) to other schools.
To be clear, “ED3” is real, and I made up “ED0.” But “ED0” is perhaps not a crazy prediction for a market with a shortage of full-pay ED bullets. This is the kind of thing I think we will see as the endgame unfolds.
Here’s another “twist” that I had not previously been aware of.
As discussed above, USC only has RD (apply by 1/15, hear by 4/1). But in order to be considered for USC’s merit scholarships, you have to apply RD by 12/1 and you hear your RD decision by 2/1.
Apparently USC started doing this a few years back as a way to fight back against Stanford’s SCEA policy. USC took the position that their “RD priority scholarship” track was just RD. So kids could apply to USC’s scholarship track and also apply Stanford SCEA. For a while, Stanford took the position that USC “RD priority scholarship” violated Stanford SCEA since it was basically the same as EA (which it is).
Eventually Stanford relented and now has an express exception to its SCEA policy that allows EA apps to other private colleges if the EA app is required for scholarship consideration.
The beat goes on.
^^Its been that way for more than a “few” years.
My DS applied SCEA to Stanford and early to USC in 2006. He was awarded USC’s biggest scholarship [ thank you USC!] .
It was standard knowledge 2 years prior to 2006 that it was OK to do this with Stanford.