University of Pennsylvania (Must READ)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>Not every student should apply Early Decision or
Early Action (non-binding, which Harvard, Yale, Stanford have in a
“restrictive” form, and other non-Ivies also have in a non-restrictive
form). And, ED or EA does not always improve one’s chances for
admission. And, not every student improves his or her individual
chances by applying early. Why? The answer is more complicated that
the reason stated above. The early pool at the highly selective
colleges is often more academically competitive than the regular pool,
full of highly prepared, organized, and serious applicants. The early
pool also typically contains athletic recruits and a large number of
legacy candidates, groups that typically have higher chances for
admission in general. Thus, the statistics for the early pool are
skewed. The advantage one gets by applying early is not as large as it
seems. There have been studies (see the Early Admission Game) showing
a significant advantage gained by applying early to the elite schools,
even after controlling for legacy or athletic recruiting. However, we
feel still that the early advantage is overstated, and probably has
declined since the mid- to late-1990s. </p>

<p>Individual students might do better applying regular admission if they
need more time to show good, consistent grades, take additional
standardized tests, and/or make sure they are applying to the right
college(s). So, strategically, it sometimes benefits the individual
student to wait. Other times, such as for a legacy applicant to U.
Penn, ED will provide a student his/her best chance. In this
particular case, Penn states they will only give the legacy factor a
boost if the candidate commits ED.</p>

<p>The regular pool at the Ivies and similar level colleges is not full
of ED/EA rejects, or a “lesser” pool, making it easier for less
qualified candidates to get in. The reality is that most students do
not get into college ED/EA, and the regular pool is larger, and just
as full of highly competitive, highly attractive applicants. So, both
pools at the elite colleges are tough, and one needs to be well into
these colleges’ ballparks for scores, grades, and courses to make them
“realistic reaches”, the best that one can do today. </p>

<p>Applying ED/EA should really be an individualized decision, based on
your own academic and personal profile, the colleges you are
interested in, and whether you are ready to commit ED, or apply EA to
a possibly first choice.</p>

2

<p>Talk about a mess of contradictions. What did that post say, exactly?</p>

3

<p>That was by Howard and Matthew Greene. They were asked questions about the advantage of applying Regular Decision instead of Early Decision to boost ones chances. That is what they had to say on that topic.</p>

<p>Howard and Matthew Greene are the hosts of two PBS college planning programs and authors of the Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning series and other books. The father and son team both graduated from Dartmouth College and work together at Howard Greene & Associates, an educational consulting firm founded in 1968. Howard is a former Princeton University admissions officer, and holds master's degrees from Harvard and NYU. Matthew holds his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder.</p>

4

<p>I kind of understand what that article is trying to say. It talks about the benifits (improving chances) of apply RD instead of ED.</p>

5

<p>I still think one should just apply ED if that's his dream school. A person wouldn't be hurting anything as long as that's the school he really wanted to go to. If not accepted, he can still re-apply to RD, but my only question is, can you apply to all the application dates if you weren't accepted yet? That'll show the adcom that you're super interested in Penn, and they like that kinda stuff..right? I know I'M obsessed.</p>

6

<p>If you apply ED to a school and are rejected, you cannot re-apply to that school RD in the same year. You can apply elsewhere, but not to that school. If you want to try applying again you have to do it as a transfer.</p>

7

<p>omggggg!! That's terrible</p>

8

<p>This is very logical if you think about it. I am not sure what I am going to do now.</p>

9

<p>that's so true. Penn wants to see your interest, but you can only apply to either ED or RD, which sucks.</p>

10

<p>I don't see why it's a terrible policy, UnusualSatire. How much can an application change within a few months?</p>

<p>With regard to the point of this post, people have made these comments before and I still think it's ridiculous. Sure there are lots of qualified people that get eliminated from the pool by getting in ED. But, there are even more qualified people that do not get into schools early, and are still there to fill up the regular decision pools. </p>

<p>Say there is this group of 96 people (I want to get as close to 100 as possible but keep a multiple of 8). They're all really outstanding, qualified applicants. Everyone applies early to one school, so it's 12 of these people per Ivy. These 12 people are really only competing with each other. Then say each Ivy only takes 45% of their class early, because that's the average statistic for early admissions. For Penn, I believe the ED acceptance rate was 30%, so let's say that's 4 of these 12 people for each Ivy. So now the 8 that did not get into their first choice Ivy decide to apply to the other 7 Ivies. This means that for regular decision, there are 56 of these qualified applicants competing to get into each school (because the 2 that got rejected cannot reapply). Since schools fill up about 45% of their class with ED applicants, that leaves 55% of the spaces to be filled up by these RD applicants. Of course, we have to take into consideration that they accept more than will yield, so if they accept 4 early let's pretend they need 6 to fill up their class, but they'll accept 9 for yield purposes (Penn's yield is somewhere around 67%, so that works, 2/3). That means 9/56 of these outstanding people will get in versus 4/12. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that there are TONS of incredible applicants out there, and when they apply ED or SCEA that means they can only pick one school, rather than lots of them. Schools can't fill up their whole class with the early pool, so a lot of these incredible applicants will not get into their ED/SCEA school and then present competition for people at more schools than just that one.</p>

11

<p>^nice example</p>

12

<p>In all my efforts to figure out all those numbers, I forgot to finish making my point.</p>

<p>Anyway, as I said, there are TONS of incredibly qualified applicants. When people don't get into their SCEA/ED school, they generally go back and modify their applications in those few weeks between hearing their miserable fate and sending out the other applications to make them EVEN BETTER. And, as I showed in my example, there are far fewer qualified applicants competing for spots in the Early pool than there are in the RD pool. Not to mention that the kids who are almost good enough ED/SCEA and therefore get deferred to RD have already shown that they really care about the school. If it comes down to choosing between an RD candidate and a SCEA/ED deferral candidate, the deferred kid will probably have preference. I have a theory that some kids get deferred because the school KNOWS that the kid really wants to come to the school, so that person will definitely matriculate if admitted. Since they can't admit their entire incoming class from the Early pool, they do have to defer the kids that really do love the school to later.</p>

13

<p>ahh that's interesting. Maybe there IS hope!
<em>sees the light</em></p>

14

<p>I have always thought that there was hope and I was thinking about a similar scenario that sweetsarah wrote about. Except I didn't do it with numbers, but by thinking logically.</p>

15

<p>Hm, I hope you're not posting this to decrease your competition for Wharton ED. ;]</p>

<p>I kid, of course.</p>

16

<p>lol... come to think of it... that's excellent strategy</p>

17

<p>but think of this: ok maybe you do deter some people from appying ED. The peopel that you would deter are those that are either not positive that they wanted to do ED from the beginning or had worse stats. What does that leave you with, a stronger group of applicants. So you just decreased your chances. Face it, there is no way out of it. Just apply as you see fit for your own case, not based on how everyone else is going to apply.</p>

18

<p>Applying RD makes sense in an ED environment that is filled with the most qualified in terms of stats.</p>

19

<p>so excel: did you decide to apply RD instead of ED or are you just trying to convince people into applying RD?</p>

20

<p>Here's the bottom line: Apply ED for your best chance if:
1. It is your clear, far and a way, no holds barred first choice
AND
2. You/your parents have a straight forward financial situation and are willing/able to pay your EFC.</p>

<p>If these two conditions are not met, apply RD.</p>