Yield

Parents Forum
81

<p>I’ve read through this thread and I really don’t get it. To me the only downsides to ED are 1. Remorse due to the wrong choice of schools, 2. Financial dilemma due to the need to compare financial aid. I’ll get to those in a minute, but first I’d like someone to explain again why they see ED as an unfair, “repressive device”. </p>

<p>We’re talking about secretive and selective admissions here. There are so many factors that are “unfair” or at least arbitrary, capricious, subjectiveand inexplicable. Kids get rejected who deserve to be accepted, who logically should be accepted, who desperately want to be accepted. Whether they’re getting the shaft in the early round or the regular round doesn’t seem to make much difference in the fairness scale.</p>

<p>On the other hand I see ED as a huge advantage to BOTH the school and the applicant, a win-win situation that helps schools control their yields and helps students control their lives. Again, I don’t see the argument. Why would an applicant NOT want to gain an edge? Why would a college NOT want to fill 25-40% of its class with highly desirable devotees? </p>

<p>Without doubt, the first priority in making the decision to go ED is having a clear first choice (or conceivably an equal 2 or 3 first choices). Once a student has picked his/her number one, then the rest will fall into place. However, if this step is skipped or fudged or underestimated then everything falls out of place.</p>

<p>I don’t see any point in arguing whether ED or EA/SCEA are preferable. If your first choice school only offers ED, then transferring your affections to another school that offers EA/SCEA is not going to float your boat. (Exceptions would be schools that offer both ED and EA, but I think these are rare.)</p>

<p>Although I accept that kids change and kids mature and first loves may be supplanted by different attractions, let’s remember that the time involved is 5 months (not 5 years!) from the time that the ED application goes in the mail to the time that the student has to make a final RD choice. If the first choice isn’t clearly first, then go no further; however, if a school is a good fit in the Fall for well researched, compelling reasons, then I see no reason why it shouldn’t remain first choice in the Spring. </p>

<p>And for the kids who are rejected or deferred in the ED round? This can also be a beneficial experience, a kind of wake up call to calibrate their RD list to include some more less selectives. Better to worry (or even panic) in December than in April.</p>

<p>Common wisdom says that if you need to compare and negotiate financial aid offers, then ED is not for you. This may or may not be factual, as no one can try it both ways to see which is better. We all know ED admittees who received adequate or even excellent financial aid. These include kids of ALL economic backgrounds. Of course we can’t say that they might or might not have done better financially somewhere else and we can’t say that they might or might not have done worse. </p>

<p>What is true is that ED is a financial RISK. What is not true is that it is necessarily a financial failure. Thus vulnerability to financial risk is an important factor to consider.</p>

<p>For the schools that are not HYPSM, ED is actually a way to lock into diversity of all kinds. This relates to yield; colleges with yields under 50% lose more applicants than they admit, especially highly qualified URMs. The fact is that they use ED to increase their diversity rates. I don’t see any evidence (actual or logical) that would lead me to believe that a college would deliberately make it difficult for a desireable minority or low income ED applicant to accept an ED offer by shortchanging him/her on their financial aid offer. </p>

<p>The main factor that I like about ED is that it gives the applicant an element of control over what is basically a low-control situation. Or in other words, it gives the applicant a feeling of having taken his/her best shot. To me this is the real risk of remorse: On receiving a rejection in April, would s/he wonder what would have happened if s/he had applied ED? I think this is a much more realistic scenario than one in which an ED acceptee wonders if s/he could have been admitted at other schools. The former is the stuff of lifelong regret. The latter a passing twinge.</p>

82

<p>And, it's not like the schools are hiding anything. Here are the instructions printed on the app at D's school:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Podunk's Early Decision plans are designed for candidates who have thoroughly and thoughtfully investigated Podunk and other colleges and found Podunk to be an unequivocal first choice. </p>

<p>Upon applying to Podunk, Early Decision candidates may not file early decision applications at other colleges, but they may file early action or regular applications at other colleges with the understanding that these applications will be withdrawn upon admission to Podunk.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think the first sentence could be any more clear.</p>

83

<p>
[quote]
IMO, a 9% acceptance rate is de facto proof of a shortfall in realistic self-selection.

[/quote]
I don't see this at all. A 9% acceptance rate proves only that there were more than 10 applicants for each available space. Every one of those applicants could have been fully qualified; in Yale's case, they say that about 75% of them actually are.</p>

84

<p>Patuxent - </p>

<p>We share a lot of the same concerns regarding economic diversity (and to a lesser extent, political diversity) at selective colleges and universities, and your observations about places like Harvard are well-taken. And though I can't prove it definitively, I believe that ED is a contributing factor toward that lack of economic diversity.</p>

<p>However, I can't help but note that the rest of your posts are laced with enough unproven assertions, less-than-useful labelling and dubious cause and effect claims to fill a dozen threads. . ."red America and blue amerika (amerika. . nice one. . heehee) despise each other" thanks to selective colleges admitting only rich people and a smattering of the poor?? Granted, media outlets and personalities sell a lot of ads based on the former claim (and Karl Rove has whipped up more than a few votes with the same theme) but it just isn't true, and certainly not a function of selective college admissions policies. In fact, those admission policies are only one set of factors that influences the economic makeup of the student bodies at the schools under discussion and you know it.</p>

85

<p>Qualified is not the issue.</p>

<p>Even at HYPSM, admissions are largely predictable in advance, even just looking at the "here are my stats" threads. I'm not saying that you can predict specific acceptances, but it's pretty easy to separate the hopefuls into "good chance", "decent chance/worth applying", "longshot", and "no chance".</p>

<p>For example, white female 10th in a class of 300 in a wealthy NJ suburban high school. 6 APs. College educated professional parents. 1550 SATs. (4 tries and prep class). V-P of Student Council, editor of newspaper, piano and horseback lessons for 10 years. Interned for state representative (daddy is a contributor). One weekend of Habitat for Humanity. Summer abroad in expensive fee-based cultural exchange program. Varsity tennis, but not recruitable for a Div. I program. Possible major: Econ or Poli Sci. Applying for financial aid.</p>

<p>Prediction: Longshot. Polite deferral in Yale EA based on solid qualifications. Waitlist in final round. </p>

<p>Likely acceptances at several, but not all, of Duke, Brown, Dartmouth or the very top LACs with a good essays and recommendations.</p>

<p>Why no HYPSM? Didn't exceed expectations based on socio-economic opportunity. SATs are discounted. Class rank not high enough to show stellar acheivement. Nothing unusual to create an EC identity. Competing in a tough stack of apps: wealthy white suburban females. Dime a dozen.</p>

<p>A lot of turmoil could have been avoided by studying the high school's "book" and seeing where the 10th ranked students have gotten accepted and rejected in recent years.</p>

86

<p>I-dad:</p>

<p>"Podunk's Early Decision plans are designed for candidates who have thoroughly and thoughtfully investigated Podunk and other colleges and found Podunk to be an unequivocal first choice."</p>

<p>is not necessarily the financial first choice. Thus the economic balance tips to those who can afford this type of application and why I see SCEA as a much better option. Look at the yield rates from the schools that have this option and you will see that it is pretty close to the 100% they would get under an ED policy.</p>

<p>As noted before, I find "agreeing" to a contract with a major term undefined to be only in the school's best interest. It also skews the pool of applicants to only those who know that the financial term is not an issue.</p>

<p>I understand your perspective about the schools being allowed to freely contract. However, there are many restrictions on contacts that vary state to state and nationally. I just think the balance is too much on the side of the schools. I guess at the end of the day we should just agree to disagee on this specific topic.</p>

87

<p>reidm - we both know you cannot prove cause and effect and I just learned my reasoning from court caes argued by liberals in the state and federal courts. Differential outcomes are defacto proof of discrimination and unfair practices. If 30% of cops taking the sergeants test are members of some identifiable group but only 10% pass then that is all the evidence you need that the process is unfair and anything that contributes to that differential outcome has to be fully justified and proved to be relevent. i.e. because there are differential outcomes here the burden of proof is on you to prove the selection process is fair not on me to prove it is not.</p>

<p>Harvard looks like America but politically, socially, and economically it is nothing like America. Why? Are the best students in America overwhelmingly rich and liberal?</p>

88

<p>Look I will concede that ED works well for a lot of (rich) kids and that it certainly works well for the schools or they wouldn't use. I'll even concede that private colleges and universities should be able to use pretty much whatever standards they want in the admission process. But I think it may fall afoul of the law if it were ever tested in court for a couple of reasons.</p>

<p>1) 17 year olds are being asked to sign these "contracts" and with rare exceptions 17 year olds cannot be bound be contract.</p>

<p>2) There is a question in my mind at least if all the elements of a contract exist which may explain why</p>

<p>A) The schools don't go to court to enforce these contracts
B) They do rely on their "competitor" institutions to enforce these contracts by blackballing any student who violates the terms which:</p>

<p>3) Suggests to me that this might be a conspiracy in restraint of trade.</p>

<p>A close look at the real numbers involved, one that looks at the available pool of qualified applicants and the available pool of admission slots rather than the admit percent tell much different stories. </p>

<p>For instance there are only about 28,000 students who score over 1450 on the SATs in the US each year. The eight Ivy's need approximately 13,500 students to fill their freshman classes and need to admit roughly 22,000 students to yield 13,500. There are a bunch of very selective LACs head hunting this same pool of applicants including Swarthmore and Williams not to mention Duke, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Chicago, Johns Hopkins and others. If these schools were to compete economically in the marketplace for this available pool of applicants the price would come down. But through industry wide agreements like "need based aid only" and ED they effectively limit the bargaining position of the consumer. And ultimately that is the basis of my objection to both policies. That these policies also lead to instituions that are socially, economically, and politically skewered in a particular direction is an artifact of those and other policies.</p>

89

<p>I think I've said twice on this thread that I favor ED & EA as options. But, as I have also tried to communicate, with ED that comes with a big If in my opinion. And that If is about differentiation and education. ED to HYPSM is not ED to the highly selective LAC's licking their chops on the sidelines, dying for those same candidates; nor is it the same as ED to a low-profile college or U in a less-glamorous environment seeking committed enrollees, esp. in particular areas of study.</p>

<p>The problem I have with some of the arguments here, but particularly yours, I'Dad, is that they are from a VERY adult perspective. You look at this all from a business perspective, from a results perspective, from a partnership perspective, etc. That is NOT the way most adolescents look at this process; it is not what drives their decision-making. And while they may "read" the fine print on the ED contract, the massive communication they actually receive about ED concerns its supposed "advantage" with regard to acceptance. Precious little attention is spent by those communicating about ED (h.s. GC's, the colleges themselves, the mass media) on the important ED category differences above, and how those differences affect ED acceptance outcomes. </p>

<p>Parents are in a position to counteract & to modify the over-generalized commmunication on ED, but the reality is (1) many of them are under-educated or misinformed about ED, and more importantly (2) possibly more than half of the ED applicants have parents not involved -- by student choice or by parent choice.</p>

<p>Even logically-oriented adolescents are more influenced by desire & emotion than (mostly) their parents. Some of these more "logical" students are quite aware of the degree of competition they face at top colleges, but when the "desire" factor is stressed over the reality factor, desire usually trumps logic.</p>

<p>I don't know why you would assume (I'dad) that there are more "dreck" applications for EA than for ED. I guess you don't read the same post-ED forums I do. You also seem to blow off the "tsunami of tears." When I read those tsunamis, I actually feel pretty angry about it, & not at the students -- at adults. I.m.o., about 80% could have been prevented with better education. Even those students who resist parental input should be getting The Straight Story from their GC's & college reps who come for campus talks. Last year's Yale EA massacre was this yr's Columbia ED massacre. There were several posters whose language sounded suicidal. And there was one poster that the other CC students were very worried about. This was mostly attributable to adult irresponsibility, i.m.o.</p>

90

<p>The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) is used by many (most?) of the nation's teaching hospitals in matching medical school grads with appropriate residency programs. The operating principle: everyone lays their cards on the table. Med school seniors rank their top choices, taking into consideration their actual prospect for admission. Residency programs candidly state what they want in a potentially successful applicant, and the NRMP works its way through both sides to come up with a "match." I'm not suggesting that this system would be directly or generally transferable to undergraduate admissions, but it seems to me that an ED process wherein applicants candidly ranked their top five choices might have some benefits for both sides, particularly among the highly selective schools. The NRMP process is explained in some detail here:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/about_res/algorithms.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nrmp.org/res_match/about_res/algorithms.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

91

<p>Sure, driver, but the reason the NRMP (usually) works is that all players agree to the rules and because, in general, there is NOT a surplus of applicants as there is for these elite colleges. In fact, NOT all residency programs or fellowships play be the rules. Some officially opt out of the match and make this public. Others don't opt out for all of their residents, but only for some...taking their number one choices "out of the match" in deals under the table if the resident agrees to sign on the dotted line and not apply to any other programs. Hmmm. Sounds a lot like ED.</p>

92

<p>As I said, I wouldn't expect the NRMP to be directly transferrable to undergrad admissions, but some of the principles might make ED--and elite college admissions generally--work better. And I'll concede that if your dad's the head of a department, you're likely to get into his hospital's primo residency program even if you went to med school in the Caribbean. So what else is new? It wasn't my intention to argue that the NRMP was perfect, but I think we agree that it works pretty well.</p>

<p>But...consider this: Wouldn't it be interesting to see what would happen if applicants ranked their true preferences, and then the colleges in return ranked the applicants in their order of preference based on their applications? So much less guessing and gamesmanship, I would think.</p>

93

<p>"If 30% of cops taking the sergeants test are members of some identifiable group but only 10% pass then that is all the evidence you need that the process is unfair and anything that contributes to that differential outcome has to be fully justified and proved to be relevent. i.e. because there are differential outcomes here the burden of proof is on you to prove the selection process is fair not on me to prove it is not."</p>

<p>This is a different claim than made earlier, and an analysis would prove useful. My guess is that in the case of Harvard, this standard might even "prove" bias against certain slices of qualified upper-income students. (This claim has been advanced on this site as have similar claims regarding qualified Asian students.) Regardless, tracking qualified applicants at various socioeonomic levels through application, acceptance and attendance at individual selective schools would be very interesting, and I think would reveal the impact of cultural forces stronger than, and outside selective schools' admission and aid policies. </p>

<p>And even when those policies are alleged to have "worked," they beg closer analysis. For example, one might propose that recent announcements by schools that they would not require financial contributions from students below a certain family income level will increase the percentage of low-income students that attend. I suspect that it will, but those policies are so close to what those schools have already been doing this will happen by increasing the pool of applicants, not by increasing the percentage of accepted students that apply. </p>

<p>Of course this is helpful only to very low-income students wanting to go to Harvard and the like, and won't increase the number of low-income students going to selective private schools. It would simply mean these kids would go to Harvard instead of Brown, Penn, Macalester, Grinnell etc. I think one thing that would be helpful to middle-class students that might want to go to a selective private college would be to NOT go around announcing that middle-class students are priced out of private higher ed. Some are; some aren't. Some private schools are more accessible than others. Your mileage will vary etc. . . </p>

<p>I think the biggest crisis of access is at public colleges, where middle-class (and low-income) families have historically looked for higher ed. Their costs are accelerating at an increased and unfortunate rate. </p>

<p>Anyway, all that research is more work than I can squeeze into my schedule, unfortunately.</p>

94

<p>on the small chance anyone would be interested interested. . .graph #3 above should end with the word "attend" not "apply".</p>

95

<p>Momrath, the theory of ED is pure and simple. Student has a first choice above all school, willing to give up comparing other schools for first crack at the school and willing to commit to it. In my day, that was the way it went, and few kids applied ED for the simple reason, that very few knew at that stage of the game what they wanted. Like most procrastinators, which most of us tend to be, they had not thought things out about college, and would not until pressed by the deadlines. The early birds were ahead of the game, many having had a dream school or more likely parental campaigning for a particular school. The rare bird was a truly motivated student who had researched his schools and was ready by early senior year to commit to a school. </p>

<p>Even back in those days, there was an inherent unfairness in ED in that the type of kid who able to take advantage of ED tended to be kids with supportive parents, and who was much in tune with the college process. It tended to exclude those kids who are herded by the schools to apply to colleges. ED has always tended to be an option most exercised by the well to do and well informed. Now this is nothing new in educational options or anything else. The goodies always go to that category of students. I would have to say that the single strongest indicator for success in the college process for kids would be how informed, competant and caring the parents are regarding going to college. </p>

<p>The big disadvantage about ED other than the loss of flexibility early in the process is that you cannot compare financial aid offers which is a distinct disadvantage for those who need the money. Yes, there is a fail safe clause that releases those from binding ED if the offer is just not going to work financially, but in reality, exercising it, particularly in the blind without any idea what else is out there is not an easy thing to do. So it just is not a pragmatic thing to apply ED if you need money.</p>

<p>In the last few years, the combination of the two factors I brought up, the use of ED by those who tend to be the well cared for kid with knowledgeable parents, and the financial aid issue is further made more intense by the increasing use of ED. As mentioned earlier, ED was an option exercised only by a small number of kids back in my day. Now, it seems, everyone is doing it. And despite what the colleges say, for most schools, it gives an admissions advantage. The numbers support this. And psychologically it makes sense when you consider adcoms who are in the process are human. You tend to be more generous in who you are considering to admit into an empty room that you have to fill, earlier in the process, if there is a crowd pressing later on. With that crowd, you have to be even more selective because you are evaluating more bodies in a smaller time period and under the gun at that point not so much to admit, but to reject. You can't throw out those in the room already, so the later the applicant, the tougher the standards to get in, especially as he is compared to those aleady in the room. The first 4.0, perfect SAT, violin virtuoso will look mighty good; the 100th one is old new and you are looking for other things that may not have shown up yet. So, here you have a system that is offering an another advantage to those already advantaged and rich, for the most part. Then when you look at the schools and populations where ED is the route that 60-70% of the kids are taking, you suddenly realize that this is no longer a case where these are the kids who have a definitive first choice any more. These are the kids who are taking advantage of the odds in the system. Most kids I know who apply ED to a long shot school are not doing so because they love that school above all. They are doing so to increase their chances of getting into a top school. The big question becomes, "where should I apply ED?". That question should not exist if ED was the way it originally was conceived to be. You know where you want to apply ED. And who is left in the dust from all of this, further handicapping them in the elite colleges app process--- the kids who live in an environment that is not as knowledgeable about the top school, whose parents are not experienced in this and who need financial aid. Starts to smell funny. That is the crux of the problem with ED. I doubt if anyone is concerned about non selective schools offereing ED where the odds are not so bad about getting in even on a RD basis. But take a look at Harvard and Princeton's ED rates vs RD. Or Hopkins, or UPenn's. You really have a much tougher go RD. And that does not include those kids admitted RD who were deferred ED, so the rate would even be higher. I know Yale deliberately defers a number of the early birds, just to give the later applicants a fair shot in the door. But just looking at Harvard's Early vs regular rates makes you realize that the numbers for college admissions for regular applicants is abysmally low, much lower than those overall numbers you see. So we have these advantaged, rich kids who are now in increasing numbers taking advantage of the better ED rates that their poorer, less informed peers can do.</p>

96

<p>
[quote]
So we have these advantaged, rich kids who are now in increasing numbers taking advantage of the better ED rates that their poorer, less informed peers can do.

[/quote]
That was a VERY long post, and I'm sure I've only partly digested it during this, my short break from Sunday afternoon gardening. But it seems to me that the nub of the whole thing for you was your closing statement, above. Yes?</p>

97

<p>Whenever the complaint threads about "fairness" metastasize on CC, I'm always reminded of this incredibly prescient short story written by a brilliant old hippie/beat kind of guy back when most of us parents were toddlers. He was right then and now.</p>

<p><a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

98

<p>"For example, one might propose that recent announcements by schools that they would not require financial contributions from students below a certain family income level will increase the percentage of low-income students that attend. I suspect that it will, but those policies are so close to what those schools have already been doing this will happen by increasing the pool of applicants, not by increasing the percentage of accepted students that apply. "</p>

<p>reidm - you are probably right AND when that pool of poor students applying increases - and here these school are usually defining poor as less than $40K - the number of acceptences will increas. The admitted pool will have more poor kids. But this is a fixed sum game because the numbers for the freshman class will not go up. FinAid is need only, so who is handicapped in this zero sum game? The rich who can apply ED and are unconcerned with price? The poor who now know they will not have to pay whatever the sticker price or the true middle class - kids from families making $45 to maybe $60 who cannot get the much dispised "Merit Aid"? It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Thank you for making my arguement for me.</p>

<p>I have said it before and I will say it again the Ivy League and other highly selective colleges are for the rich and a handful of the poor. If they were true meritocracies they would be much different places.</p>

<p>BTW - I don't buy your fear that public colleges are becomming less affordable. In fact it might be just the opposite but they are changing their focus from college for everyone to college for the best students. With admissions policies and scholarships based on class rank and GPA states like Texas and Georgia and Florida are leading the way ina renaissance of our public universities.</p>

99

<p>Yeah, Driver, I am long winded, and that is probably the crux of my over blown message. But I was also trying to bring the the history of ED and how it was not a commonly used venue in the days of yore (of mine anyways) but has not become an admissions strategy.</p>

100

<p>As I head back out to the garden, I have to say: I was never even aware of ED as an option at all when I was looking at schools in the 70s!</p>