Things like Ivy Day are a big event. They don’t want to diminish it.
Could you imagine people trying to predict what their odds are given that the haven’t received a rejection letter yet and there are x days until acceptances are released?
3 Likes
Yes, and nor does Caltech or Stanford. But I’m referring to those that do.
Ok, sure - but I think the value of early rejections is really for the EA/ED round. Ivy Day is part of RD so less value in knowing rejections early.
If elite colleges released rejections of RD applicants who are clearly not a good fit early in the process we’re going to be inundated with students asking what are the chances it’s a mistake, if it’s possible to appeal, and what additional info. could be sent to change the decision. I can’t imagine the emails it would generate for the schools. If they release all the RD decisions at once they can say they had more talented applicants than they have room for and let the students they rejected sort themselves (qualified but no room vs unqualified) as they see fit.
3 Likes
I’m focusing on EA/ED not RD. As I said above, that’s where I think there’s real value in early rejections.
A lot of colleges (example: UMich, NEU, GaTech OOS come to mind) are releasing EA decisions in late Jan. That’s way past the RD application deadlines for most colleges.
If an applicant knew by mid December that s/he was going to be rejected then s/he could recalibrate and better select which RD colleges to apply to.
2 Likes
I think there’re at least two reasons:
- Most of these schools are public and they can’t process all their EA applications by year end.
- They (unlike MIT/Caltech) don’t want to offer acceptances to applicants who may have ED acceptances elsewhere.
Yes, I’m aware and I’m not questioning their timing. The topic of this thread is early rejections.
So I’m saying - given that timing - early rejections will help applicants.
It used to be that news/lack of news from FA would give an earlier indication as to whether or not you’ve been admitted or are competitive–I know larger top schools like Cornell and USC had a tendency to do this–but they’ve tightened up the process a lot and if an applicant is missing FA materials, they’ll pursue them regardless of how the student is reading to AOs so far.
There are still some “tricks” and “glitches” colleges have that accidentally let slip that essentially let students know if they’ve gotten in or not. To name a few that were still active as of two cycles ago: UC Berkeley’s portal will change in a certain way if you’ve been accepted, Vanderbilt had an “accepted transfer students” webinar that only let you sign up if your email was linked to an accepted student’s portal, and Amherst’s portal would keep the “withdraw” option in your portal within a few hours of decisions being released only if you had been admitted.
Not all, but many do use it as a soft reject. Typically to soften the blow of very unqualified legacy applicants who aren’t part of the 30-40% they don’t let in. They also use it to give the applicant’s parents more time to donate another building to the school 
I think that having early acceptances is way more important than early rejections. Too many people work top down rather than bottom up. My DS started with a rolling admission school and had an acceptance in October. A few more match and reach EA acceptances in December. The rest was all gravy. Even the rejection that came later didn’t sting as much.
2 Likes
Again, if this is the reason they don’t do it, it’s a stupid reason and pretty spineless of them. Stanford rejects most EA applicants (rather than defer as many schools do) and they make it clear there’s no appeal/reconsideration. Yes, all EA decisions are announced at the same time but at a juncture in the application process (early Dec) where the applicants (or more likely their parents) have plenty of time to ask “what are the chances it’s a mistake, if it’s possible to appeal, and what additional info. could be sent to change the decision.” This process seems to be functioning sufficiently well for them.
For schools that reject 90-95% (or even 80-90%) of applicants, you can always say this, regardless of when (after the submission deadline) you notify the rejected applicants.
2 Likes