Why is SCEA Acceptance Rate so much Higher?

<p>The SCEA Acceptance rate is over 5 times ashigh as regular decision. Harvard's peers such as Yale and Stanford are more like 2 or 3 times as high in the early round. Why is harvards so high? I know it's more talented than regular decision, but it can't be 5 times as talented right?</p>

<p>IMHO, Harvard Admissions is trying to push more students into applying early.</p>

<p>When Harvard went back to SCEA, their early admit rate was pretty comparable to YPS – and it was easy to accept their explanation that your chances in the SCEA round were no different than the RD round.</p>

<p>However, last year Harvard took more than half their class in the early round (895 students) – that’s 246 more students than Yale took SCEA, 198 more students than Princeton took SCEA and 170 more students than Stanford took SCEA.</p>

<p>By taking so many more applicants in the SCEA round than their peers – both in sheer numbers and percentage wise – Harvard is “tipping their hat.” They are letting student’s know that if you really want Harvard, your chances are better applying in the early round, otherwise you’ll be stuck with the 3.1% RD acceptance rate.</p>

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<p>@gibby,</p>

<p>“Harvard is letting student’s know that if you really want Harvard, your chances are better by applying in the early round.”</p>

<p>Although a reasonable hypothesis, that’s nonetheless speculation, unless you can show something where Harvard is explicitly saying that.</p>

<p>When I look at the EA admission rates of the four schools you cite, I don’t see Harvard as the outlier at 21.24%. but rather Stanford as the outlier at 10.77%. Princeton’s EA rate is much closer to Harvard’s than to Stanford’s, and Yale’s is closer to Princeton’s than Stanford’s, and almost equidistant between Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>An alternative hypothesis is that Harvard draws the strongest EA pool because it is the first choice of more highly-qualified students.</p>

<p>^^ @notjoe: Yes, my hypothesis is total speculation. Who knows, maybe your theory is correct. </p>

<p>Well, admissions is just so transparent about the whole process, LOL.</p>

<p>Although it doesn’t explain the difference between Harvard on the one hand and Yale or Princeton on the other, there is one factor that helps explain why SCEA admission rates are so much higher than RD rates. Almost all – not completely all, but pretty close – athletic recruiting is processed in the SCEA round, and the same is probably true about some other special cases like famous actors and professional musicians. So if Harvard gets 4,500 SCEA applications and admits 900, really that’s something like 200 people admitted from a special application pool of 200, and another 700 admitted from a pool of 4,300, or about 16%. If you apply that analysis to Yale or Princeton, it gets their non-athlete SCEA admit rates pretty close to Stanford’s. Which makes sense, because Stanford – which is not bound by Ivy League rules – does not use SCEA slots for its athletic recruiting.</p>

<p>Gibby is right, though, that Harvard seems to be ramping up its early admissions dramatically. Many colleges had relatively high early admissions this year, but Harvard’s difference was off the charts. Here is the difference between the number of applicants accepted in the early round for the class of 2018 vs. the class of 2016 at a bunch of peer institutions:</p>

<p>Stanford: -6
Yale: +60
Princeton: - 12
Columbia: +45
Penn: +151
Brown: +27
MIT: -68
Chicago: -182
Duke: +149</p>

<p>Harvard: +220</p>

<p>This, by the way, is strong evidence to contradict notjoe’s speculation that the Harvard early admission pool is that much stronger than anyone else’s. It may be stronger (although from my corner of the world, there’s no evidence of that), but its relative strength compared to YPS cannot possibly have changed that dramatically over the past two years. The number of applicants to admit early is one of the few things a college’s admissions staff can absolutely control, and when it goes up by ~14% per year for two straight years as Harvard’s has, it’s a strategic decision, not a reflection of who’s applying.</p>

<p>So, the question is:</p>

<p>"The SCEA Acceptance rate is over 5 times ashigh as regular decision. Harvard’s peers such as Yale and Stanford are more like 2 or 3 times as high in the early round. Why is harvards so high? I know it’s more talented than regular decision, but it can’t be 5 times as talented right?</p>

<p>Gibby’s answer is: “IMHO, Harvard Admissions is trying to push more students into applying early.”</p>

<p>He gives as argument for the assertion:</p>

<p>“When Harvard went back to SCEA, their early admit rate was pretty comparable to YPS – and it was easy to accept their explanation that your chances in the SCEA round were no different than the RD round.”</p>

<p>Let’s look at SCEA and acceptance rates, but over more than just the last three years. I took much of the data from two commercial sites involved in college coaching. </p>

<p>From the class of 2007 to the class of 2018 (excluding, of course, the years that Harvard had no early admissions of any sort), the rate of SCEA admission at Harvard has varied from 15.1% to 23.3%. The rate of 15.1% in 2007 seems to be an outlier, with the next four years ranging from 20.8% to 23.3%. Rather than a “ramping up,” the last three years look more like a return to form from before Harvard’s four-year EA hiatus.</p>

<p>Yale’s SCEA admission rate has varied, from a low of 13.4% for the class of 2013 to a high of in 2011 of 19.7%, and various points in between, before and after.</p>

<p>Prior to Princeton’s introducing SCEA for the class of 2016, Princeton, too, had had a hiatus, but before that, they used Early Decision, not Early Action, with much higher admission rates. Their rates over the last three years have been 21.09%, 18.3%, and 18.5%.</p>

<p>When I look at the overall context of HYP early admissions, Harvard’s current numbers don’t seem to me to be some sort of artificial “forcing,” but rather, about average in terms of their EA history, and not very much different from the EA history of Yale or Princeton.</p>

<p>If there are differences that don’t come out in the statistical wash, there are other explanations other than gibby’s. I advanced one:</p>

<p>It’s possible that Harvard just has a stronger EA applicant pool. </p>

<p>The question, then, is, do the best students apply SCEA equally to all three schools, or does one school or the other attract more of the best students than the other two?</p>

<p>Admitted students are, by definition, as a group, the best students that apply to a highly-selective school. Some students are cross-admitted, and provide an opportunity to see which school, if any, is preferred by admitted students.</p>

<p>When I look at preferences of cross-admits for these three schools (here is a page that purports to have this data: <a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.; - it’s consistent with information I’ve previously seen) , in head-to-head match-ups, Harvard wins the most cross-admits 2 to 1 or more against either Yale (68% - 32%) or Princeton (79% - 21%). </p>

<p>Winning the cross-admits suggests that more of the students who actually qualify for admissions to these schools view that school as their first choice, and may be more likely to demonstrate that preference by applying through Early Action.</p>

<p>notjoe – You are missing a lot if you just focus on the rate of early acceptances. The total number of students Harvard accepts each year is remarkably stable – the maximum variance in the past 11 years is 101 students, or 5%, and if you disregard the two high years for the classes of 2009 and 2010, the maximum variance is 35, or about 1.6%.</p>

<p>The number of early applications to Harvard has also, in fact, been relatively stable – about 4,000 per year before the break, and about 4,700 the past two years, with 4,200 the first year they reinstituted SCEA. Over that period, however, total applications to Harvard have increased 75%, from ~20,000 per year to ~35,000.</p>

<p>From the classes of 2008 to 2017, Harvard never allocated much more than 44% of its total acceptances to early admissions (and never less than 38%). And the 44% figure only applied to the first and last classes in that range; otherwise, it was never above 42%, and the average was about 40%. Which, by the way, happens to be about what Yale and Princeton have also done consistently.</p>

<p>As I noted, for the class of 2017, Harvard matched its historical high by handing out just over 44% of its total acceptances to early applicants in the early round. (More early applicants deferred in the early round were likely accepted in the regular round, but there’s no way I know to get precise information on that.) For the class of 2018, Harvard accepted 95 more early applicants than it had the year before, while reducing its total acceptances to the lowest number since it expanded the college to its current size. Which meant that 49% of its acceptances went to early applicants in the early round (and likely a majority of acceptances went to early applicants). For a college that abandoned early admissions only seven years before because it believed early admissions discriminated in favor of the wealthy , that’s a pretty big shift in emphasis towards early admissions. And it far exceeds the growth in early applications (which represent an ever-smaller proportion of the total admissions pool); early applications to Harvard actually went down from the class of 2017 to that of 2018.</p>

<p>In other words, after a fairly consistent pattern of granting 40% of its acceptances in the early admissions round, which is similar to that of many peer colleges, last year Harvard decided to grant almost half of its total admissions in the early round, increasing the number of its early admissions by 10% over the highest number they had ever been before. And when they had been that high before, early applications represented 20% of all applications, whereas last year they were about 13% of all applications. That’s not a return to form, it’s a radical departure.</p>

<p>The admitted class is also 55% boys vs. 45% girls which is also a radical departure from past history (they could, of course, easily maintain a 50/50 ratio), so who knows what they’re up to.</p>

<p>@JHS,</p>

<p>I understand what you’re saying, and as I said to gibby, gibby’s original thesis is a plausible explanation for the data. I just don’t think it’s the only plausible explanation.</p>

<p>Gibby said, “IMHO, Harvard Admissions is trying to push more students into applying early.”</p>

<p>If this is what Harvard is trying to do, they’ve failed so far. It could happen in the future. Maybe they’re just a few years into a long-term plan to push more students into applying early. But as you point out, appreciably more kids are not applying early, at least not since EA was renewed. In fact, SCEA applications fell slightly this year from last. They’re just accepting more of the kids that are applying early. Which suggests to me that the composition of the pool is changing - that more of the best students are showing up in the SCEA round.</p>

<p>I think that two, and now three years of EA results are changing the psychology of the application process for many Ivy-focused, especially HYP-focused students. I think more students believe that there really is an added advantage to formally applying SCEA over RD, and thus, a higher percentage of those students who have the best chances of getting admitted are making up their minds earlier, or at least acting more formally on what they’d already decided.</p>

<p>With my own two sons, EA was a bit of an afterthought for my older, who applied for the class of 2016, the first year of Harvard’s renewed EA. It was much more of a consideration for my younger son, after seeing two years of roughly a 9:2 admissions advantage of EA over RD applicants. After this year’s ratio of nearly 7:1, it’s hard to imagine that anyone will be left applying RD who can make a case for SCEA.</p>

<p>Thus, Harvard isn’t trying to push more students into applying early, but rather trying to flush out and push to apply early more of the best students who will apply, anyway. They don’t want to increase the number of early applicants, just the number of the strongest students to apply early.</p>

<p>The obvious advantage to them, then, doesn’t have to do with increased selectivity or yield, but rather, getting more of the best students and denying them to the school’s rivals. My son’s girlfriend applied SCEA for the class of 2016. She also applied to her state flagship. She got accepted to Harvard. Didn’t bother to apply elsewhere. Didn’t have to. At that point, Harvard doesn’t have to fight Princeton or Yale or Stanford or anyone else for any cross-admits. An enviable place for Harvard to be.</p>

<p>Thus, although the 7:1 advantage this year in admission rates between SCEA and RD applicants sure looks like there’s a big thumb on the scale, I’m not sure that’s what’s going on. I think it’s somewhat more likely that Harvard is pressing its advantages to draw more of the best students into the early round. The fact that it looks like there’s a big thumb on the scale for the early applicants is a happy side effect that enhances the desired outcome - increasing the strength of the early pool.</p>

<p>I tend to believe there is a deliberate shift to early admissions, because I see it happening lots of other places, too. For years, the University of Chicago handed out about 40% of its total acceptances to EA applicants, but this year it was more like 55%. (And no one has been savvier about admissions strategies in recent years than Chicago’s Jim Nondorf. If he’s doing something, there’s probably a darn good reason for it, at least in terms of his goals.) Northwestern used to limit its ED to 25% of its class or less, but recently it has crept into the mid-40% range. Duke’s ED seems to have gone up by a couple of hundred students over the past few years. Cornell and Penn have bumped higher by a similar amount, although percentage-wise it’s less.</p>

<p>What’s really interesting to me is that Harvard made a real attempt to kill early admissions altogether not so long ago, and this fall well over half of its freshman class will consist of people who applied there early.</p>

<p>Lots of good points raised by various posters. Found this article that is relevant in lots of ways:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/02/25/harvard_and_princeton_restore_early_admissions_option”>https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/02/25/harvard_and_princeton_restore_early_admissions_option&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This article put me in a cynical mood, which prompted me to do the following calculation:</p>

<p>SCEA/REA applications for Class of 2018</p>

<p>Harvard–4692
Yale–4750
Princeton–3854
Stanford–6948
Total–20244</p>

<p>Harvard’s percentage of HYPS “first choice” early applications = 23%. For the Class of 2018, Harvard had about 25% of the admits among these four. For the 2017 Class (the best I could find) Harvard had 26% of the enrolled students among these four. Those numbers can not sit well at Harvard, I would think.</p>

<p>SCEA is close to being a zero sum game. The top schools are fighting over these 20,000 or so top students. Can’t apply SCEA to more than one, and an early acceptance gives an enormous advantage for ultimate matriculation to that school.</p>

<p>With a 21% acceptance rate for 2018, I would anticipate that Harvard’s SCEA application totals will rise this year. Crystal ball is foggy on whether these will come at the expense of Y-P-S, or if all ships will rise with the tide.</p>

<p>(Did not include MIT in this calculation because they are non-binding early admission…but they had 6820 early applications in case anyone is interested)</p>

<p>FWiW: Stanford’s SCEA applications have been rising steadily for the past 3 years, however their admitted numbers are remaining steady and acceptance rates are declining: <a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>2016: 5,880 applied, 755 admitted = 12.84% acceptance rate
2017: 6,103 applied, 725 admitted = 11.88% acceptance rate
2018: 6,948 applied, 725 admitted = 10.77% acceptance rate</p>

<p>Whoa! Those numbers support the notion that there is H-S, if not HYPS, competition significantly involved here, I think.</p>

<p>In perverse reverse psychology, I wonder if chances of getting in early at Yale or Princeton might rise this year if Harvard succeeds in attracting a larger portion of the early applicants (which I think they are likely to do)?</p>

<p>All good points…especially by @JHS and @gibby. What Harvard admissions is trying to do will most likely end up being a double edge sword…in that, a few more may apply from the other 3 schools that it competes with…but, I believe there may be many more sophisticated students that will profess “phantom applications” to H to their high school competitors/counterparts…but, in reality will apply to their “dream schools” S or Y to increase their chances of early acceptance…</p>

<p>Cool, hope it stays the same for 2019</p>

<p>Update: I ended up applying SCEA to Harvard this year and got in! I personally believe that an applicant does gain a slight boost applying SCEA, but that’s just my opinion. I’d like to thank everyone for their input! </p>

<p>interesting analysis by fenwaypark:
SCEA/REA applications for Class of 2018</p>

<p>Harvard–4692
Yale–4750
Princeton–3854
Stanford–6948
Total–20244</p>

<p>It would be interesting to add in the total ED applicants to the other top schools: Columbia, Brown, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Duke. It would be an interesting tally of self selected students to the top schools that are single choice only.</p>

<p>Thanks, Southview.</p>

<p>So here is what was said a few months ago</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>So the point was that Harvard has about 25% of the Early admits, and about 26% of the total seats, but only about 23% of the SCEA/REA applications among HYPS. (I did not compare MIT which is EA, or top ED schools, just to keep it apples to apples)</p>

<p>Then Harvard has its famous 21% admissions rate for the Early round of 2018 and what happens to applications in 2019? (Of course there are other factors besides Harvard’s 2018 admissions rate at work, but anyway)</p>

<p>Harvard–5919
Yale–4693
Princeton–3830
Stanford–7297
Total–21739</p>

<p>Harvard’s percentage of HYPS “first choice” early applications jumps to 27% from 23% the year before. This exceeds the percentage of Harvard’s total seats among HYPS. This seems to be largely at the expense of Yale and Princeton. And even though MIT is EA, what happened with early applications there?</p>

<p>2018–6820
2019–6519
(-4.4%)</p>

<p>So what’s the point? Nothing earth shattering. But if, say, about 20,000 of the 21739 who applied early to HPYS are truly the creme-de-la-creme of the 2019 Class, Harvard got more than its proportional share of those apps this year based on total seats–and a chance to select from more of the creme–while it got less, last year.</p>