YALE to review EA Policy.

Parent Cafe
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<p>E.A. to come under review
By Daniel Katz
Staff Reporter</p>

<p>In a move that could fan the flames of a renewed nationwide debate on early admissions, Yale will consider ending its early action policy during a formal review process later this year, University President Richard Levin said Thursday night.</p>

<p>Yale's review, announced in the wake of Harvard's decision to revert to a single admissions deadline, will be conducted before Harvard's policy change takes effect next fall. But Levin said Harvard's trial period without early admissions - currently set to last for two to three years - will continue to inform Yale's shifting opinion of the program.</p>

<p>"Now we have a live experiment," Levin said. "Harvard has made a move, and we'll be thinking hard about it and watching it closely. We'll certainly be looking at that option this year in light of Harvard's decision. I wouldn't want to predict how it would come out."</p>

<p>This decision marks only the most recent shift in Yale's - particularly Levin's - take on early admissions. In 2001, when Yale still maintained a binding early decision program, Levin ignited a national debate by criticizing such programs, saying that early admissions should be abolished altogether. Months later, the University switched to a single-choice early action program, and other schools, including Harvard and Stanford, soon followed suit.</p>

<p>In a field where the University once seemed poised to set the pace among its peer institutions, officials at Yale now seem more inclined to await the effect of Harvard's decision on its applicant pool and, perhaps more importantly, its yield, which has bested Yale's in recent years. That wait-and-see approach mirrors the way Yale went about reforming its financial aid policy in 2004 - announcing changes in March 2005, a year after Harvard saw a spike in applicants following similar reforms.</p>

<p>Then as now, Harvard's stated goal was to bolster recruitment among students from low-income backgrounds, a perennial goal for the nation's top schools. But Yale's consideration of an end to early admissions follows a statement Levin issued earlier this week arguing that it is unclear whether such a change will markedly aid this goal.</p>

<p>"It is not clear that eliminating Early Admissions will result in the admission of more students from low-income families," Levin said in the statement. "Since such students are underrepresented in the Ivy League applicant pool, what is really needed is what Harvard, Yale and others have been doing in recent years: that is making efforts to increase the pool of low-income students who apply and strengthening the financial aid packages they receive."</p>

<p>Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said Levin should seek to deliberate on the early admissions question for as long as is necessary.</p>

<p>"You wouldn't want a president who runs Yale based on what Harvard does," Nassirian said. "It is actually quite frankly the kind of thoughtful reaction you would want from a university president. You don't want him to jump to conclusions, don't want him to turn the institution on a dime."</p>

<p>David Hawkins, the director of public policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said he thinks it is unlikely that Harvard's move will spark a paradigm shift in other schools' admissions policies. Early admissions is attractive to universities due to the increasing difficulty in recent years in predicting the yield of students who accept an offer of admission, Hawkins said, and most universities are unlikely to spurn short-term yield gains in favor of long-term growth in low-income recruiting.</p>

<p>"Colleges from Ivy Leagues on down would be hesitant to completely abandon these policies for fear of losing a significant percentage of applicants to schools that do have early admissions program," Hawkins said.</p>

<p>The Faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid Policy will weigh the possibility of ending early admissions this year, Levin said, and the Yale Corporation, the University's highest decision-making body, will begin to discuss the issue at its meeting this month.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=33211%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yaledailynews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=33211&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>This was entirely expected.</p>

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<p>I just want to say a big Good Luck to H, Y, and probably P (shortly). It will be considerably harder to sort through all those RD apps (& decide who may be the more likely matriculants), given that applicants will now have no predictable way to reduce their total apps, with no early admission in hand. I maintain that this was a premature decision. The trial period should have started with the "declining enrollment" year (post-'08). My prediction is that the applicants this year & next will suffer even more angst than those previously, if that's possible. Wonderful.</p>

<p>A bolder, more leaderly way to go would have been to institute some kind of binding rolling admissions (serial ED with financial aid escape clauses) in several phases, while retaining, of course, the standard RD option. And <em>before</em> implementation, train the GC's & have them introduce/train families in this approach. Use your (H's) "traveling admissions committee members" to educate & recruit among the various economic classes, regions prior to the pilot trial year.</p>

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<p>My own preference would have been to cap the number of students admitted early. Offering admission to 800 students with a yield of 90% is tantamount to admitting 40% of the incoming class early. That's too high a proportion.
And if we don't believe that students try to game the system, read the post on the Harvard forum about a class of 2012 prospective applicant who declares he will "have to" apply SCEA elsewhere.</p>

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<p>I believe that most admissions deans wish that Harvard and Yale would just pick a plan and stick with it for more than two years on a row. Changing their policies every other year drives the rest of the schools nuts.</p>

<p>It's hard enough to predict yield in today's dynamic admissions market to begin with. Every time Harvard and Yale change from binding to non-binding to single choice to non-single choice or back again like a staggering drunk sailors, it introduces a degree of uncertainty for every other elite college. Do they need to accept more? Put more on the waiting list?</p>

<p>The students are ultimately the losers whenever uncertainty is introduced into the system.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
And if we don't believe that students try to game the system, read the post on the Harvard forum about a class of 2012 prospective applicant who declares he will "have to" apply SCEA elsewhere.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Purely as a philosophical issue: why do admissions deans object to their customers "gaming the system"? It's not like the admissions policies haven't turned the whole thing into a big game in the first place: SAT percentiles, slots for this, slots for that....</p>

<p>In a way, you have to wonder what the heck is wrong with a customer who doesn't try to "game the system".</p>

<p>I think it's because Admissions Deans don't want to acknowledge their role in turning the whole thing into a game.</p>

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<p>concur with epiphany and I-dad.....instead of one SCEA or ED app, the top kids at Stuy, TJ, New Trier, Bronx Science will now send out apps to HYPSM, and more. And, what's wrong with applying SCEA somewhere else, (which I guess means Stanford)? Being done by Dec 15th can make for a fun, and fulfilling senior year.</p>

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<p>There is no doubt in my mind that all of the elite schools that eventually axe ED and EA out of what they say is benevolence will find a way to continue to give the wink-wink, nod-nod to those students that they see as most desirable. I would even bet that whatever they do will happen close to the old ED/EA schedule. They want to lock certain kids in. </p>

<p>I believe they would come closer to accomplishing a more even playing field for those that need financial assistance by all agreeing to go SCEA. With SCEA there would still be an early system in play for those students that actually have a first-choice school and would also give those that need to the ability to shop financial aid packages after the second round of applications. An early numbers cap isn't a bad idea either - the argument against that I suppose is that capping early numbers might keep many academic kids out of the early acceptance pile because the flagged/hooked candidates (athletes and the like) are told to apply early. JMHO.</p>

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<p>Ellen:</p>

<p>what will really be worth watching is your neigbhor, Lee Stetson. Penn has made a dramatic climb in the rankings over the past 15 years, primarily on ED....</p>

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<p>Penn is an excellent school and has also played the rankings game very, very well. It will be interesting to see how schools like Penn and Columbia handle what is going on. Personally, I think that they will benefit by staying ED.</p>

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<p>Rolling admissions has its own drawbacks - namely stress, uncertainty, and the more ability to "game" admit rates. Nevertheless, I'm with Epiphany. Rolling might be the way to go, especially the way that some schools do it (early notification, non-single choice). It does allow colleges to better build a class (once they get deposits, they can figure out who they have and who they need). Law schools say that they get daily or weekly updates on who has accepted offers of admission, so they can balance out geography, major, GPA, LSATs, race (probably in reverse order). </p>

<p>Financial aid is another big consideration. Schools really only have a limited amount of money to give out, and more certainty in the admissions process allows them to better distribute their funds. If they give out too much aid in one year (ex. class of '10), then the next class year ('11) will get less aid to make up the difference.</p>

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<p><em>watches Yale jump off a bridge because Harvard told it to</em></p>

<p>It's a pity Harvard couldn't do something more beneficial, like making test scores optional or refusing to give US News information. Other colleges will apparently follow suit. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Does this mean a lot more likely letters?</p>

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<p>Why should Harvard make test scores optional? It is a national yardstick. Used judidciously it can help evaluate candidates from very disparate backgrounds.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I believe that most admissions deans wish that Harvard and Yale would just pick a plan and stick with it for more than two years on a row.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're exaggerating here, interesteddad. Harvard and Yale are in their fourth year of the SCEA experiment. </p>

<p>The last time Yale changed its admissions policies before that was fall 1995. Harvard had kept its policy the same for well over a decade before it moved to SCEA four years ago.</p>

<p>
[quote]

It's hard enough to predict yield in today's dynamic admissions market to begin with. Every time Harvard and Yale change from binding to non-binding to single choice to non-single choice or back again like a staggering drunk sailors, it introduces a degree of uncertainty for every other elite college. Do they need to accept more? Put more on the waiting list?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree that it is harder to predict yield under these circumstances. </p>

<p>But elite schools already put lots of students on their waiting list. So perhaps they'll get to take lots more students off the waiting list in the next few years.</p>

<p>I think everyone should be more philosophical about this. </p>

<p>Education is what you make of it.</p>

<p>Just as students are encouraged to "make the best out of whatever college you land at," colleges should be encouraged to "make the best of whatever students land there."</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Why should Harvard make test scores optional? It is a national yardstick. Used judidciously it can help evaluate candidates from very disparate backgrounds.

[/quote]

Well, I didn't really mean that literally. I think that SAT scores are useful, but I don't think they're as helpful as they used to be. In the era of SAT tutors, SAT prep books, and even SAT Prep classes in high schools, one has to wonder about the validity of the test. Even if test scores are optional, most people would still submit them (80% at Bowdoin). On the other hand, one could argue that Bowdoin and the other SAT-less colleges are small and receive far fewer (and generally less competitive) applicants than Harvard, making selection easier.</p>

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<p>Well, that's why SAT scores have to be used "judiciously," that is, with a dollop of skepticism.</p>

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<p>the trouble with rolling EA/ED is that departmental slots get filled up, and if we are to beleive the critics of ED (of which I do not), Early Rolling would only exacebate the problem of low income, unprepared kids applying to the Ivies later than everyone else.</p>

<p>Far better, IMO, is a Dec 1 common app deadline, and a March 1 notification date, with 60 days for kids to negotiate and decide.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Far better, IMO, is a Dec 1 common app deadline, and a March 1 notification date, with 60 days for kids to negotiate and decide.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I like this idea!</p>

<p>A two month period to decide is a very good idea. Some students have their spring break in March, others in April, so it would be nice to have more flexibility in scheduling visits.</p>

<p>I have a student who is interested in applying to a "long-shot" school that is far away from home. He understandably doesn't want to burden his family with the expense of a college visit to a school that may not even accept him. ED doesn't make sense because he can't visit to make sure it's truly a first choice prior to acceptance, let alone prior to application. His school is strict about absences so spring break of his senior year is really the only good time to visit. However, his spring break is in late March before he will even find out results of RD admissions.</p>

<p>EDIT: Another reason I like this idea. Kids would have the luxury of a truly relaxing winter holiday vacation without the stress of writing essays and applications hanging over them. (Admittedly, Thanksgiving would be somewhat crazy, but c'est la vie. Better to get it all over in four days than string it out over 10 days in late December. And if all high school teachers knew there was a common Dec 1 application deadline for all seniors, they might cut a bit of slack right before December 1.)</p>

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<p>...and wouldn't it be nice if all schools adopted the same system. My daughter went through the process four years ago and I helped educate my sister a little this round as her financial-aid needing son got himself organized. No wonder a niche consulting industry has developed. The rules keep changing and if you throw in athletic recruitment or financial aid needs into the mix, oy!</p>