@UCbalumnus explained clearly in their post above why in fact students who apply SCEA are demonstrating that the school is their first choice, because they give up a lot to do so (in that their other apps are primarily restricted to RD and rolling schools only). I get the sense that you aren’t current in college admissions nor its inequities.
We would only know yield by admission round for the schools that are transparent with that data.
Being non-binding, it does allow the admitted applicant to compare FA offers.
That is the main point for SCEA / REA over ED. The college gets some applicants who would hesitate applying ED for financial (or perhaps other) reasons but are willing to apply SCEA / REA to the college as their current first choice. Yield from early admits at these college is quite high, though not as close to 100% as with ED.
It does seem that many applicants are unaware of college net price calculators, and those with somewhat unusual parent finances (self employment, small business, real estate, etc.) may find some of them less accurate and be more hesitant about applying ED. Chicago does help some applicants excluded by other schools by not requiring non-custodial parent information for financial aid.
And even then, some families want to still compare offers. Some might be full pay, but would rather not be full pay, to take one example.
Come May 1 the family could be looking at a highly rejective school at $80K vs. $20K at Alabama vs $50K at Richmond vs $25K-$30K at their state flagship. Because college is often one of a family’s largest expenditures it can make sense to compare costs. Even if cost isn’t their primary factor heading into the process, the dramatic difference in college costs a high stats kid might have come May 1 can be compelling and result in choices a family might not have made in the Fall.
I can only go by logic and my understanding of human nature, @Mwfan , and I got the point made by @ucbalumnus without any problem.
Either SCEA is a big improvement on ED or it is not. The improvement seems to lie only in being able to make these comparisons with the offers of other schools made in the RD round, after which one has the possibility of accepting one of those offers and rejecting the SCEA offer. That sounds good in principle, but I would think it important to know whether it is actually happening. I get it that statistics don’t exist, but I have a hunch. Don’t you?
There are only 7 schools with SCEA/REA, of which are all highly rejective schools (a function of popularity) with high yields so I would expect their early round yields to be similar to their overall yield, perhaps a bit higher than in the RD round, but not much when one doesn’t have to commit until May 1. SCEA/REA yields are not as high as in ED, which are typically 95%+.
These 7 schools have specifically chosen to offer SCEA/REA over ED, partically because of equity in admissions issues. They also aren’t worried about their yield rates. Yale also cited a desire to reduce stress on applicants.
I suppose it could be the case that those seven highly selective schools really see the SCEA option as facilitating “equity in admissions” and “reducing stress on applicants,” but I wouldn’t take their assertions of those motivations to the bank. It sounds more like a deflection of criticism to me. As you say, they know very well that almost all applicants accepted will take them up on it. And, of course, almost everyone accepted will be over the moon with joy. It’s hard for me to see much essential difference with ED.
That much is clear. Perhaps some reading on the various equity issues in admissions (start at NACAC, Akil Bello, and/or Jon Boeckenstedt’s postings), or volunteer to help limited income students through the college admissions process through orgs like ScholarMatch or College Possible (there are many more).
Setting financial issues aside, why should someone have to swear an oath of allegiance to a school in order to have a decent chance of admission? It is asking vulnerable, inexperienced, often underage youth to sign on the dotted line in advance under heavy pressure (when the accept rate goes from 3% to 25%, there is pressure). Given that ED exists, schools shouldn’t max out on ED, as Chicago apparently does, just as an issue of fundamental fairness. Certainly 50% of the class admitted ED is plenty. Once that is hit, students could be deferred to RD, not necessarily rejected.
There is something smarmy about the whole practice. And the mass mailing and advertising that Chicago does, after it has already filled the class with ED admits, surely appears to be for the purpose of driving down their overall acceptance rate so they can look more prestigious.
Everyone hates the mass mailings. But you can’t have it both ways- either the colleges are too elitist, relying on a narrow band of high schools (public and private) filled with affluent kids, OR they cast too broad a net letting first gen kids, rural kids, kids in suburban areas who think their only affordable option is the local community college-- that their particular college could be a fit AND affordable.
I have seen first hand the power of the mailings. The most exceptional student I ever interviewed for my alma mater (not Chicago) heard about the college from a mass mailing. He didn’t know EA, ED, how to game the system, how to manipulate the odds- but he was a truly outstanding student who deserved better than to commute to the local community college for a certificate in phlebotomy (his plan until he was admitted to Brown and encouraged to consider med school instead).
How do you reach people who aren’t on the “Paid College Consultant” and “high priced tutor” merry-go-round unless you ACTUALLY reach out to them??? Is it smarmy to work hard to find outstanding and brilliant students who have no idea that they can afford a four year college which might be halfway across the country???
For Chicago, this isn’t an either or situation. Chicago both has mass mailings and appears to have far more admits from a narrow band of affluent high schools than peers, particularly private prep schools. Specific numbers have been posted in other recent threads, which I can reference if helpful.
I don’t see much correlation between which colleges have the largest mass mailings and which colleges have a diverse population with good SES balance. Better correlations include things like being less selective, less emphasis on testing, being located near an urban area, being public, having excellent FA, and outreach programs that target desired groups (different from untargeted mass mailings). For example, among high selective colleges, some of the ones with higher and lower percentage Pell prior to COVID are below. Chicago is known for mass mailings, yet it still had a smaller reported % Pell than all schools that are typically referenced as peers.
Selective Colleges with High % Pell
UIUC – 28%
UCLA – 26%
Princeton - 25%
Amherst – 24%
UT Austin – 23%
Wellesley – 23%
Selective Colleges with Low % Pell
Tulane – 8%
Tufts – 10%
Notre Dame – 11%
Barnard – 13%
Chicago – 13%
Georgetown – 13%
For some people, retaining options and choices for longer is of value, because some factors in the decision are not yet known*. When such people are high school seniors or their parents, they are likely to be more comfortable applying REA rather than ED. From the college’s point of view, these additional applicants are of value in strengthening the early applicant pool.
*For example, the student sees the college as the clear first choice, but the parents are hemming and hawing about paying for it when the student will get a full ride at some other college.
Thanks for the data, Data10!
Actually, it can help a lot with increasing yield. The existence of the EA pool gives Chicago a chance to review a large group of applicants whose original first choice is likely not Chicago, then contact the most desirable/promising among them to suggest that they look like very strong candidates (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) for the binding ED 2 group if only they would agree to switch. Some will understand the implication that admission is likely conditional upon the switch and decide to accept that offer, perhaps deciding that virtually guaranteed admission to Chicago is worth more than a lesser chance at whatever their true first choice was. More importantly, some will not accept, which means that Chicago effectively determines which of their targets would accept an offer of admission without having to make an actual offer that would decrease yield statistics if rejected.
Let’s say you do this with 100 students, each of which Chicago was eager to enroll. 25 accept and are admitted ED 2, so the true yield of this overall group is 25%. But for statistical purposes, the other 75 never actually received a real offer of admission, so the reported yield is 100%, 25 out of 25. See? It’s a nifty trick. Chicago surely isn’t the only one to do this - there are several other schools with ED 1, EA, and ED 2 rounds, which creates this possibility - but I’ve seen more anecdotal accounts of this here on CC involving Chicago than anywhere else.
SCEA blocks you from applying to other private colleges early. So, it signals first choice out of other, similar colleges that are likely to offer the same financial aid.
EA offered alongside ED doesn’t increase yield—but it lowers admissions rate.
This is a good point. I know a certain MIT EA admit who would have been very tempted to ED2 Chicago if they had been deferred from MIT and got such an email from U Chicago.
I know this may be breaking the thread, but about UChicago boosterism, this is literally what my screen looks like as I am typing this…
An impressive case study on how effective and repeated marketing can achieve laudable results.
Also a study in how annoying these ads can be on mobile devices. This “pop-over” add seems to have no way to get rid of it and makes me have to rotate my phone to submit my reply.
My screen is almost exactly the same, except for the Life of the Mind part.
@txfriendly , I expect this straddle happens but doubt it happens frequently enough to budge the stats in the way you suggest. If it did it would cut against the received wisdom that EA is not the way to go: EA applicants would enjoy the best of both worlds - keeping all options open until the moment the Admissions Office showed its hand. The switch to ED would then guarantee acceptance on both sides. Of course the EA kid, if he or she really didn’t want to go to Chicago, would be free to refuse the bait, and in that case the University would, as you say, have learned something from this and would tap another applicant in his or her place. I search for any reason to think that this showing of the cards on both sides would be a bad thing. However, as I say, I doubt it happens very often. Certainly the kids who reveal their results on cc never in my recollection speak of any such thing.
