U. of Penn Student Newspaper: It's Time to End Early Decision

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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http://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/editorial-end-early-decision

Great article from the leaders of the Daily Pennsylvanian - Penn’s student newspaper. While they could have presented more data, they accurately portray Penn as one of the biggest “offenders” in use of Early Decision.

Thoughts?

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I believe that Penn should switches to SCEA or EA

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@Cue7 the article has many inaccuracies. First of all they say Penn’s RD yield is 46.5%. Last year it was over 50%. They confuse target yield with actual yield. Then using this false yield rate they go on to compare what Penn without any ED would look like against other schools which are themselves admitting 40-35% or more of their class ED, so complete apples to oranges.

In general, I do not disagree that the reliance on ED could be reduced at Penn but doing away with it is unrealistic. Also Penn gets the most ED applications out of all top schools and many top applicants are willing to commit to Penn ED so why not take a higher percentage? Maybe Penn and other ED schools should focus on strengthening programs like Questbridge to increase access to ED by low-income students.

ED works well for Penn, they shouldn’t change it. Maybe they should reduc the percentage taken ED to 50%, but it doesn’t make sense to do away with ED.

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It’s Monday morning, so I’m crankier and more cynical than usual, but my two thoughts reading the article are:

  1. Penn is probably going to pay as much attention to this editorial as they did to the same one that was written last year about ED - none.; and,
  2. I wonder how many of the kids on the editorial board got in to Penn through the ED process?
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ED is beneficial to the school. I do not think they will dump ED.

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@Cue7 another inaccuracy is that ED yields 100% of the admitted students. That is never the truth, it is closer to 96-98%.

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One of the reasons schools use ED, is because they like having a big portion of kids on campus who really love the school and want to be there. That builds morale and community. Nothing worse than having a lot of students on campus lamenting the fact that they didn’t get into their top choices and now are at a school reluctantly. I believe this was a reason Northwestern stated when they went to ED.

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@Penn95 - yes, some of their stats were slightly off (actual yield on ED is indeed closer to 96-98%, not 100%), although the paper stated that Regular Decision tends to yield “slightly less than 50 percent year to year.” Their statement on RD, when assessed on a “year to year” basis is probably accurate - most years Penn’s RD yield has been slightly below 50%, especially if you go back a few years, no?

The valid notes about the slight statistical inaccuracies aside, the Daily Pennsylvanian’s Editorial Board raises some great points. Yes, they could’ve presented more data (especially data on how diverse the RD applicant pool is - on all fronts), but I don’t think anyone doubts that the ED pool tend to contain more people from privileged backgrounds, and contains restrictions/rules that may adversely impact the poor more than the rich.

Re background of ED at Penn, this article on “the Early Decision racket” has been referenced in the past, and is helpful here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/the-early-decision-racket/302280/

Penn, in some ways, is the poster child for the irresistible temptation for using ED, much to institutional benefit and applicant loss. You get great students, they commit early, yield is super-high, and you can use RD to fill in the gaps.

But here’s the problem: when do you have too much of a good thing? Penn used to fill maybe 1/3 of the class ED, and that number has crept up over the past 15-20 years. During this time, schools have fought hard to look more similar to one another than ever before. Institutionally, for example, Northwestern has never been so similar to Penn as now, and Penn has never looked so similar to, say, Harvard. ED, though, is ruthless: pick your true love out of many similar-looking suitors now, or forever hold your peace.

This year, with Penn on track to fill 55% of its class ED, it looks like there are two application options:

Apply on time (ED), or apply late (RD).

In recent years, the applicant pool has noted this signal, and ED apps continue to spike at College Hall.

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@Cue7 But that happens in all top schools, not just Penn. I agree with reducing the percentage of the class taken ED to 45-50% but doing away with it is completely unrealistic. some schools are even worse than Penn in that regard, Chicago is going to fill 75-80% of its class early this year.
Also penn gets more ED apps than any other school so an argument could be made that it is not abusing ED any more than the other schools.

I agree that ED is not ideal, but sure Penn can’t just do away with it. Increasing financial aid and supporting programs like Questbridge can offset some effects that ED is criticized of creating. But I don’t see what else can be done? Maybe they could go SCEA or EA but that creates more issues for them and would increase their marketing and outreach costs by a lot.

Reducing % pf class then ED by a bit, increasing financial aid and supporting Questbridge and similar programs seems the reasonable way to go.

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@Penn95

I agree - I think the news article came on too strong - if Penn just suddenly did away with ED, it’d actually put itself at a tremendous institutional disadvantage.

At the same time, Penn CREATED the entire process of Early Decision, and they created the template that other (nono-HYPSM) schools follow. In the past few years, Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc. all have increased their use of ED. Further, Chicago, one of the last principled holdouts, allegedly went completely off the deep end and followed ED to its logical conclusion: a class that is overwhelmingly filled ED.

Given all of this, as the data/literature and stats about the ED pool has NOT changed over the past 15-20 years, I think it’d be great if Penn (the heaviest user of this, until Chicago’s numbers can be confirmed) started to dial it back. Start gradually reducing the number of ED accepts, with the goal of having, say, no more than 33% of the class ED by 2025. Publicize (heavily) the reasons why this is being dialed back. Gain back credibility in the midst of a system going off the rails.

I have the least confidence in ad comms that use ED the most. I’m disappointed to note my two alma maters (Chicago and Penn) are at the top of the list of abusers.

(As a contrast to this, Charles Deacon, the Dean of Admissions at Georgetown, has done some pretty phenomenal work trying to maintain a principled admissions system: http://www.thehoya.com/admissions-dean-talks-staying-competitive/)

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@Cue7 Honestly ED doesnt bother me as long as socioeconomically diverse students have access to it and there are great financial aid resources to give early applicants security in their choice to commit. I d much rather see Penn focus on that than rolling back ED dramatically (i still would like it to be rolled back quite a bit though, like in the 45-50% ballpark).

Rolling it back a lot won’t make any difference. Few, if any schools will follow I think. ED is too convenient for an institution to just abandon it or dramatically reduce it. Yes Penn was the first one to do it, but honestly it was a matter of time until a non-HYPSM elite school thought of this in their quest for to grow in prominence and appear more selective/desirable. Penn just happened to be the first that thought of it and implemented it. But now it is out of its control I think.

Still, as i said they could dial it back a bit. I think over 50% is a bit much.
Yes, if the 75-80% figures of Chicago are correct, this is beyond ridiculous. I imagine it will also hurt quite a bit their RD apps next year.

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Penn does admit hundreds of athletics during ED round, and many more with hooks.

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Definitely not time to end ED. Some things to consider

  1. Penn provides an ivy league education to more students from a lower socioeconomic background than all of the other Ivies except for Cornell. While the percentage of students who have access to this education is important, the absolute number is actually what matters most when considering societal impact. While Penn may not have huge percentages of students from the lowest socioeconomic rungs of the ladder, it is still providing an incredible education to more students from that income bracket than its peers, giving it a larger overall impact on society. It also does so with fewer resources per student available than Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth. Yet it often has larger percentages of students from the lowest income brackets than all of those schools except for Harvard as well-- meaning they are educating more disadvantaged as a percentage of their class and in absolute numbers. So perhaps its use of early decision is actually an engine for socioeconomic diversity and at the very least, there is no evidence that other schools of equal quality with SCEA (or early action) are doing much better with regard to socioeconomic diversity despite not having ED. In fact, among the Ivy + group, Columbia (Dean Furda's old stomping grounds) is considered the most socioeconomically diverse and it also has a robust ED program. Maybe in order to improve access to these universities, more schools should make the switch to ED?
  2. Penn gets enough ED applicants to fills its class nearly 3 times. It is in a position unique from all of its peers in that it gets so many more ED applicants (as an absolute number and as a percentage of the class they intend to enroll). Thus, Penn actually shows great restraint in only filling about half its class with ED when ED candidates are usually more qualified academically, more capable of paying full tuition, and they've indicated that Penn is their unrivaled first choice. Judging Penn by the standards of other universities that aren't in particularly equivalent positions isn't going to yield a particularly nuanced assessment of the value of ED for Penn.
  3. I love the dedication to Penn that its use of ED creates. I was an RD admit who chose Penn partially because there was a spirit on campus that screamed "I LOVE IT HERE AND I DON'T WANT TO BE ANYWHERE ELSE." I did not feel that spirit at Columbia. I did not feel that spirit at Princeton, or Brown and I definitely never felt it at Cornell. But Penn had that feeling on campus that every student genuinely wanted to be there. Part of that is because such a huge proportion of the students chose to bind themselves to the school because they were so sure that it was the right place for them. If Penn were going to lose some of that character without ED then it would be a loss that transferring to SCEA or EA wouldn't be worth. Because it doesn't change the quality of the education-- Penn would still be providing what I consider to be a superior undergraduate education. But it would change the vibe on campus without improving socioeconomic diversity or somehow improving the school overall-- no thanks.
  4. Penn is not Harvard.. or yale... and it definitely ain't Princeton- and Quakers LOVE THAT! Harvard is allowed to do what ever it wants in college admissions. It had ED, it had EA, it had SCEA, it had no early program. It does as it pleases and it largely defines what other universities can safely do without criticism. But Penn doesn't have to follow along. It is its own institution with its own unique needs. Penn shouldn't bend to the pressures of its peers just to play by their rules. Penn threw out the rules book, blazed its own trail and it led to wild success for the University. Why turn back now? So that it can enroll as few students from the lowest incomes brackets as Princeton and Yale? Penn has 4 undergrad schools and provides a great education to more students than both Princeton and Yale. If it believes its admissions programs would benefit more from a different model than the one Princeton and Yale use, then so be it! Nobody is talking about how Princeton should open up a nursing school because of the incomparable good it provides to a nation with a severe shortage of nurses. Princeton feels it best educates its students without one and benefits the most disadvantaged in our nation despite not graduating any nurses. Fine! But if the way Penn chooses to fill its class is different than its peers, perhaps its because Penn is a wildly different school. And thank goodness for that.
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As a Penn alum, I find it particularly amusing how many Penn alums become obsessed with defending Penn’s ED policies. I get it, you love Penn. That doesn’t mean that everything Penn does is right, or defensible. The bottom line is that ED, as compared to EA, favors the institution over the applicant, and favors applicants who are wealthy over those who are critically dependent on Financial Aid. Also find amusing the Penn alums who defend ED based on Penn’s (relative) lack of resources. Remember, Penn is the institution proud of the fact that they have the most Billionaire alums. To bad they are also the least generous Billionaire Alums ( e.g. Donald Trump, cough, cough) who only give to their favorite charity, which happens to be themselves?. Perhaps the institutional bias inherent in Penn’s inclination to favor itself over applicants, and wealthy applicants over poor explains the dearth of donations from it’s prosperous alums?

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Trump may donate his presidential library to Penn.

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ED is a great way for a student to indicate this is his/her first choice and is willing to go if accepted. Had our family not been middle class, I would have jumped on the opportunity.

I think Penn should keep the program. It is very beneficial.

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@f2000sa "Trump may donate his presidential library to Penn. " = collection of Hustler and Penthouse?

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I’d actually say ED gives the poor and wealthy a bump while leaving the middle class at a dead-end.

I got accepted to Penn ED 2021 as a low-income, first-gen student.

I did my research, toured colleges, and compared the NPCs of different schools. I knew that because of Penn’s huge financial aid budget, money would not be an issue; and worst case scenario I could just break my binding agreement citing financial difficulty.

All of my friends are currently in the process of deciding which school they want to attend out of their more than a handful of acceptances - what a great problem to have! Sometimes I get envious and wonder what the result of my other college decisions would have been; then I remember how much time, money, and effort I saved having only applied to four colleges out of the ten I originally planned to apply to.

Also, I really don’t believe the lack of representation of low-income students is primarily a college’s fault. Selective schools are looking for a profile that the majority of low-income students do not meet. Everyone can agree that education is the primary way one can climb the social ladder, however, does one need to go to an ivy plus school to do this? No.

What matters most is the mindset and culture that a student has grown up in. I’ve noticed a common trend in my time of lurking on CC and attending Penn Quaker Day. While the majority of black Americans are low-income, the majority of low-income students at elite schools are not black, not even Hispanic, but Asian. The blacks and Hispanics who make it into these institutions are for the most part, not first-gen and at the very least middle class.

I’ll preface this by saying, yes I am black - but in this context, I am “black.”

I am the child of Ethiopian immigrants who while never being uber strict taught me to prioritize education above all else. They taught me not to treat education as a necessity but a privilege. This is missing from most black households who teach their children to endure education rather than revel in it.

Are you guys saying that ED is not an option for low-income students because they would not be able to bet on being able to afford to attend - or is it that they don’t have the knowledge of how ED admissions work?

P.S. sorry if I drove this thread in a direction it didn’t need to go in but I think this is an interesting conversation to have.

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@apocalypsedreams wrote “Are you guys saying that ED is not an option for low-income students because they would not be able to bet on being able to afford to attend - or is it that they don’t have the knowledge of how ED admissions work?” Primarily the first point, though I would phrase it as “is not the best option” as opposed to “is not an option.” ED Fin aid awards amount to a take-it-or-leave it offer. If the award is sufficient to your needs, then great. If it isn’t, the individual has to abandon the acceptance and the award. Contrast that to an EA Fin Aid award where the individual has an opportunity to possibly compare the award to other awards and the option to use those other awards to re-negotiate the EA award should the RD awards prove to be superior.

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@apocalypsedreams nailed my feelings: “I’d actually say ED gives the poor and wealthy a bump while leaving the middle class at a dead-end.” If you know you’re low income and going to get a lot of financial aid, you can safely apply ED. If you’re on the high end and going to be full pay anyways, you have nothing to lose applying ED. But in the middle - where you’re not sure you’re going to make it, and need to compare packages from other schools, or perhaps hoping to get a merit award somewhere, well, you’re doing some high stakes gambling applying ED.

My D applied ED and I am thankful that she didn’t get in ED. She got deferred and got in RD and the FA package came back $3300 short of the NPC. We’re upperish middle class and would be having to take $10,000/year in loans for our daughter to attend Penn while contributing 30% of our AGI.(And that assumes D contributes $3150/year from a job and $3500/year from work study) Although D she still loves Penn, and we agree that she would be totally happy there, she can’t go. Neither she nor I can justify spending that kind of money for her to go there when she received other acceptances for schools with offers that let her graduate debt free.