Analyze This: Early Decision! By David Stoffer In the mid seventies a group of liberal arts colleges introduced "early decision." Though somewhat selective in nature, these schools were experiencing slippage in their applicant pool. They were not experiencing the caliber of student applying that they once did. Early decision was one; among the numerous clever marketing techniques they used, to improve their academic stature. Early decision was so successful that today, more than four hundred colleges and universities use this admission practice. Others, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yale, Stanford and most recently, Harvard, have dropped this binding practice for reasons that will be mentioned later in this article. Early decision makes sense to the admission office as it guarantees attendance of selected outstanding students for their fall classes. Once admitted, the admissions staff's job of recruitment is completed. Students admitted through early decision assure their chosen school that they will be attending in the fall. They do so by agreeing not to apply, under a signed agreement, to any other school or to withdraw their applications at all other institutions that the student has under consideration. The selling point is that the admissions office's goodwill releases the student and his or her family from senior year admission anxiety. Sounds great doesn't it? My question, "Is early decision the panacea that it appears to be?" One would argue that, after all, the student is now able to relax and enjoy his or her senior year as they, the admitted students, no longer have to worry about senior grades. But do they? I am still looking for the admit letter that does not say, in effect, "You are admitted pending successful competition of your senior year." Few students or parents know of or are informed of this and other negative aspects of this seemingly helpful process. James Fallows, in his "Atlantic Monthly," September 2001, article, titled "The Early-Decision Racket," describes early decision as an "arranged marriage." Not only do the colleges get the "pick of the litter" but they also improve their "yield." Yield is the number of admitted students that matriculate. Obviously, the higher the matriculation percentage, the better the institution looks to the plethora of college rankings that exist. Early decision is one of the primary reasons we are now trying to jam 60% of our college bound students into only 10% of the schools in our country. Requiring an admitted student to attend improves an institution's statistical profile making them appear to be even more desirable. Another major concern with early decision is, students must choose their colleges far too early and with little detailed knowledge about the institutions they are choosing. Peers, rumors, and information from college rankings influence them. Instead of selecting a college or university to attend that is a "good fit," students become more concerned with early decision as an admissions strategy. An extreme example of this happened a couple of years ago when a father said to me, "My son is going to apply early decision next year, we just haven't decided where yet." In such a misguided scenario, a good academic and personal fit become secondary to the need to attain admission to an elite institution. Recently I requested a close friend and college counselor at an elite secondary prep school check his pool of students who had matriculated to college the previous year. Our goal was to find out which graduates of his school were requesting high school transcripts needed to transfer colleges after competition their freshman year. Not surprisingly, he found a higher transfer rate in early decision students compared to those students attending their first-choice schools via the regular decision process. The astute and informed person will not argue that the college is the winner with this process. Admitting outstanding students before the first of the year is a plus and the more, the better. Knowing you have such students in your "hip pocket" can be only positive for the college or university. The admissions office knows, in early winter, what excellent students will be attending in the fall. Little follow up is necessary as no other school is competing for the student's attendance any longer. Since the inception of early decision, the volume of applications to elite institutions, though still enormous, has been reduced. One Ivy League admissions director, who requested anonymity, said to me, "I wish I had a way to convince high school
counselors to talk some of their students out of applying to our school. We could do a far better job with selection of our freshman class if we had fewer applicants. We simply have too many applications, for the limited number of admissions officers we presently have, to select the best available candidates." The average application at an elite college has approximately twelve minutes spent on it before a decision is made. As a counseling tool, I suggest you, the parent and student, answer the following questions regarding early decision. In this way you will know if this is a wise and prudent move to pursue. The questions are as follows: • Have you begun an objective college search in your sophomore year or earlier? Sandwiching the college selection decision between the homecoming dance and Thanksgiving break is a concern. Yet many college bound students do this and, yes, want early decision to boot. It is wise to sit down with a college consultant, develop a list of possible colleges and universities based upon your academic record and personal needs, then visit. • Are your parents concerned about the cost of your college education? It is not surprising to find that the majority of early decision applicants are from affluent families, those that do not have demonstrated financial need. No Ivy League school will offer any of their students merit (non need) scholarships unless the family has demonstrated financial need. This includes fifty+ other elite colleges and universities throughout our country. The other 3,500+ United States institutions of higher learning will offer their students merit scholarships regardless of their demonstrated financial need. The student applying early decision is, in essence begging. The student is saying I'm yours, please take me, and give me what financial aid you will. Financial aid officers state their best financial aid awards go to their early decision students. They have a point, to a degree, as there is a tendency to filter their funds into the earliest round of admission. My response however, is, "Relative to what?" The student will have no other awards with which to compare. It is possible that a far more generous award will be imminent from another school but that student and his or her family will never know. The student is ethically obligated to withdraw all applications from other schools under consideration when admitted early decision. If there is no longer an application pending, no financial aid offer will be on the horizon. • Are you an exceptional student? Yes, I know, you have an excellent GPA, class rank, many AP and Honors courses, and outstanding SAT/ACT scores. There are many outstanding students. Actually there are far more outstanding students than there are spaces in elite colleges and universities available. Besides having an outstanding academic record, what special talent do you possess that separates you from the many other outstanding students? Remember, early decision was created to lock in the exceptional student. The students that can make the school look good in other ways beyond academics. Early decision was not created for the marginal applicant as many students and parents believe. • Does the college or university, to which you are applying early decision, admit the best candidates available? Yale University admitted only 6.4 percent of its applicants this year again leading the Ivy League and the World in selectivity. This honor (or dishonor as some would say) is again Yale's for the second straight year as the Ivy League's most selective school. Harvard received the most applictions of the Ivy's last year when they received 22,995 applications for 2,058 spaces. Yale received 19,323 applications for only 1,151 spaces. Cornell one the least competitive of the Ivies, largely due to its status as a public university in six of its seven colleges and larger student enrollment, had a minor drop in its overall application rate for the Class of 2006. Cornell's admitted 20.5 percent of their applicants. In spite of this much less selective figure, Cornell still rejected slightly more than 24,000 students.
If, for some reason, every applicant admitted to a given Ivy League school decided not to attend, the class that replaced the original one would be every bit as outstanding. You would not notice any difference in academic ability or quality of the second class from the first. Elite colleges choose their incoming classes because of perceived needs of the particular institution that year. For example, Princeton University invited many more musicians and dancers into the Class of 2006, in addition to many international students and minorities. These students, with outstanding academic credentials, have an advantage when it comes to the admission process regardless of their early decision or regular decision status. The message, the best applicants do not necessarily get admitted. Just because you apply early decision to an elite institution, does not mean you are the type of student that a institution wants or needs. Are you a minority, live and attend high school in an underrepresented state, have special talent, or the son or daughter of an alumnus? If so, you have an advantage in any of the elite institution's applicant pools be it early decision or regular decision. • Does a possible denial or deferral concern you? Are you the type of student who has rarely met with failure? Most early decision letters come just before the winter break. The rejected early decision student may be waiting as long as four months (April 15) for an admit letter. The denied student who has applied to only one school now has to finish their other applications and send additional recommendations to other schools to open up new college possibilities. Deadlines for applying to many other schools may be now close at hand. You now have increased pressure on yourself during your winter break. The early decision deferral is a tricky subject. It is not uncommon for a school to request additional recommendations from a deferred student thus prolonging the anxiety. The very thing the student was trying to avoid. Avoiding anxiety is one of the primary reasons students use early decision in the first place. Deferrals are also used to string along students for political reasons. The deferral is used, at times, for students of influential alumni or big donors. Such students are strung along with the hope of a possible admit when, in fact, there is no hope for such a student being admitted whatsoever. Such a deferral is called a "courtesy deferral." If you end up in this category the student may never know. Yes, the student may be the son or daughter of influential alumni or a big donor. What family wants to admit to themselves this is the reason for the student being placed on the waitlist. Don't bother to ask either, because the admissions office will deny this type of a deferral exists. Let me assure you that it does! • Are you the type of person who has "second thoughts" about decisions you make? There are people and yes, students who have difficulty making decisions and such people are prone to have second thoughts. Yes, such a personality trait isn't the healthiest way to live but there are those of us who do think this way. Early decision is not for such a student. Much can be said for the student who applies to an assortment of colleges and universities then makes a wise and prudent decision. The advantage of this approach is the student will have more time to compare the schools under consideration, learn as mach as possible about the various institutions and gain a great deal of self confidence from his or her admission to a number of colleges. What an ego boost that can be. For the student who wants to know about their college selection early, without the constraints of early decision, they should use "early action." Under such an arrangement, the student still gets an early response on his or her admissibility yet does not have to accept until May 1st. The student can still consider other offers for admission and financial aid from other schools under consideration. Early action is offered at such elite schools as Brown, the University of Chicago, Georgetown, and Harvard. When applying to a rolling admission school, why would a student need early decision or early action? Colleges and universities that accept students on a rolling admission basis accept students four to six weeks after their application file is complete. If a student applies in mid October, he or she will know the
admissions decision by Christmas without using early decision or early action. Furthermore the student still has the other colleges in contention and can make their admission decision on or just before May 1st. Copyright Š 2007 by David E. Stoffer