<p>There are a number of reasons why such a shared list does not and could exist, most of them having to do with possible antitrust ramifications and also logistics.</p>
<p>First, an ED list restricted to the Ivies would be largely useless. The concern is typically not an ED kid from Brown trying to apply RD to Harvard, more likely a Tufts or Middlebury ED accept applying to Dartmouth or Cornell RD. So for an ED monitoring system to be useful at finding out potential abusers you would have to include many more schools, at least the entire so-called "568 Group" of 30 or so elite schools, so named after Section 568 of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994 enacted by Congress to set forth in statute the terms under which institutions may cooperate in sharing student information and awarding financial aid. IASA specifically forbids the sharing of any individual financial information on candidates and more generally any individual information on candidates that may affect admission. In general, under IASA schools may share aggregate information on candidates in order to develop a common methodology for the award of need-based financial aid. (The so-called Consensus methodology). This was to avoid each institution developing its own financial aid system and obtain some uniformity in awards. 568 Group schools would therefore compete on their respective academic merit and not on the basis of their financial aid packages. It is extremely unlikely that sharing the names, addresses and social security numbers of admitted ED candidates for the purpose of tracking multiple applications would be allowed under IASA. In addition to potential privacy issues, such a system could certainly be construed as impeding students freedom of choice and restricting competition, which the IASA was specifically enacted to prevent. This is why institutions have been very careful since 1994 about what information they share and include various notices on their web sites that they comply with the Act. Some like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton even opted out of the 568 Group altogether electing to share not even aggregate information with its peers, let alone individual information. </p>
<p>Suspending for a moment disbelief that some of leading educational institutions would risk running afoul of IASA and the consent decree they entered into with the Jutsice Department and agreed to share individual information on admitted students, how would such a system work?</p>
<p>First, such a system could never be centralized because of the potential security and administrative issues. That would require downloading and maintain names and information on an external database separate from their own admissions system. In addition, they would be given secure access in read-only mode to the lists managed by every other member institution to check for multiple applicants. The corruption of a single access code from hacking, collusion or theft would make the entire database accessible to the outside, much too great a risk for the universities. So for the supposed sharing to work, each institution would need to grant access to their system to every other member institution so they could run that list against their own applicants. They would have to manage passwords and access for dozens of people not affiliated with their own institution, praying that somehow they did not give access to everything else beyond the ED list. Again, way too much risk of corruption of the entire university computer system. With universities required to disclose any potential breaches of privacy from unauthorized access, the negative consequences could be substantial. The breach of the UCLA admissions computer system in 2006 which exposed over a million UC student files to unauthorized was a major source of embarrasment to the university. </p>
<p>Finally, the downside of such a shared system would far outweigh its potential policing benefits. All the burden would be on the institutions with the ED programs. Schools such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton or Yale would not need to provide anything as they only have EA programs not ED programs. On the other hand, they would be given free access to all the lower ranked schools ED applicants, presumably some of their best applicants. Directly competing schools such as Amherst and Williams would have access to each others top applicants. What an extraordinary data-mining source! While they would not use the lists to have the ED applicants switch, the data could be used or rather misused in many ways such as analyzing the demographic profiles of their competitors' applicants. This is a real risk as was shown a few years ago, when a Princeton admissions officer was caught red-handed trying to access the Yale admissions system. Some schools with full need based financial aid may feel perfectly in their right to contact ED candidates from other schools wih smaller endowments and less likely to meet the full financial need of its applicants. The IASA would make any attempt at enforcing the ED agreement illegal in that circumstance. </p>
<p>In summary, all the bogeyman stories about collusion between universities to enforce any ED agreements are just that: bogeyman stories. The entire application process is largely based on trust as is the Federal Tax system. If you cheat, whether by inventing positions and awards or applying to multiple schools ED, you most likely won't be found out. But if you do, you may pay a heavy price. Universities simply do not have the resources to verify that everything applicants put down is correct and thruthful. They can check SAT scores and transcripts, but that is pretty much it. The entire system depends on a high level of compliance or it would fall apart. For this reason mostly, a university may feel obligated to reject a candidate accepted ED elsewhere if the issue is brought to its attention unless there is a compelling reason for the double application such as serious financial need. An applicant who cheats on his application, may also be cheating on his term papers after being admitted. Universities will never prosecute an ED applicant who defaults on his commitment to enroll because of the bad publicity as well as possible legal risks. They are just betting the applicants will be dissuaded from cheating in the first place.</p>