With autumn rapidly spinning by, the college application process is ramping up for high school seniors. Most of you are finalizing your college lists, completing application forms, and fine tuning essays. And, with November fast approaching many of you are trying to decide whether or not to apply early decision to your top choice school.
There is a lot of information out in the ether about early decision that can be both confusing and anxiety producing. So let me offer a few thoughts that may help to illuminate the salient issues regarding early decision for you.
To begin it is important to distinguish between early decision and early action. Early action programs provide an avenue for applications to be evaluated and acted upon on an expedited timeline. Early action deadlines are typically November 1 or November 15 and applicants find out if they are admitted or denied well before the traditional late March/early April notification period (some schools notify in December, others do so in January or early February). Importantly, you may apply early action to more than one college and acceptances are non-binding. In other words, if you are admitted to college through early action, you can wait until you hear back from the other colleges to which you apply before committing to any school.
Early decision (ED), by contrast, is more restrictive and binding. You may only apply ED to one college and if admitted you are required to attend. The deadline to apply ED is typically November 1 or November 15 and decisions go to students in mid-December. Whereas early action programs are bimodal (applicants are accepted or denied), students who apply through ED programs may be accepted, denied, or deferred to the regular admission period. Because ED is binding, students must withdraw any applications they have submitted to other colleges at the time they are admitted to their ED school.
Early decision programs were originally focused on high performing students with a clear first choice school. The colleges benefited by locking in a core group of top students who really wanted to be at their institution and making the spring application review process a bit more manageable. The students benefited by being admitted to their top choice school in December and not having to type (yes, it was that long ago) and submit applications to other schools.
With the rise of college rankings like US News and World Report’s, however, the size, scope, and purpose of ED has changed dramatically. To be sure, it still provides an avenue for qualified students to gain admission to their top choice school in an expedited way. But for colleges, ED is first and foremost an enrollment management tool that enables them to exercise significant control over their yield number (the percentage of admitted students who enroll at the college) which is a significant data point in the high profile college rankings process.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. To be sure, insofar as many selective colleges are taking up to 50% (or more) of their incoming class through ED, a lot more students are being admitted earlier in their senior year and thereby escape four or five more months of the anxiety and pressure associated with the college admission process.
So colleges can manage their enrollments better and more students are into college before New Year’s Day in their senior year. Sounds like everyone wins, right? Well, maybe. But maybe not.
Because yield on ED admits is essentially 100%, colleges have begun to use it as the primary vehicle for admitting some students they want and need in their communities, who fall on the lower end of the academic curve for the incoming class. For instance, most selective colleges that do not give athletic scholarships (e.g. all NCAA division III schools, Ivy League schools) admit the majority of coach supported athletes through ED. Also, an increasing number of schools are now requiring legacy applicants (children or siblings of alumni or current students) to apply ED in order to receive preferred status in the admission process.
I am not suggesting such students are not qualified for admission or capable of succeeding at the colleges in question. They are and they do. Not all interesting, talented, and strong students have 1500 on the SAT and straight A’s. Indeed, many students with “weaker” aspects of their academic credentials excel in selective college classrooms and bring important qualities to their campuses that make college communities the vibrant, diverse, and interesting places that they are. That’s not the issue. The issue is, with the US News bean counters lurking out there, colleges would rather admit and yield one oboist or field hockey player with a 3.3 gpa or 1250 SATs during early decision, than to have to admit three in April with the hope that one will enroll.
So selective colleges are taking larger percentages of their first-year classes through early decision. Accordingly, fewer students are admitted through the regular process. Statistically speaking then, students’ odds of being admitted are greater in early decision – when they are being measured against a smaller pool of applicants for a roughly equal number of spots – than in regular admission. And, because savvy college counselors and increasingly sophisticated applicants and their families know this, more and more students who want to attend selective colleges are being advised to apply ED.
For students who have done thorough college searches and know with as much certainty as any high school senior can that they want to attend College X, ED remains a wonderful option that makes sense. But for those who really aren’t sure and find themselves wavering between a small, rural, liberal arts college one day, a flagship public research university the next, and an engineering/technical institute the day after that, early decision doesn’t make sense from an educational standpoint.
The rub is, as an admissions strategy for applicants to selective colleges, early decision is almost always the way to go.
So what’s the point?
The point is three things:
- Doing as thorough and comprehensive a college search as possible is especially important if you are considering applying ED to a college.
- As much pressure as you may feel to apply ED to a school on your list, if you don’t have a clear first choice, my advice is to wait apply to a full list of schools that interest you through the regular admissions timeline. Trust the process, give yourself the extra time to figure out what you most want from your college experience, and make your choice in the spring.
- The value of college rankings is open to debate but it is indisputable that they influence how colleges operate. And make no mistake, the impact of yield management affects the admissions process in ways that are not always in students’ best interest.
Choosing a college choice is a big decision. Ultimately it’s not about rankings or perceived prestige or expediency. It’s about who you are and how you learn. The objective is to find a place that meets your needs and speaks to your interests. If early decision is a tool that can help you achieve those ends, then go for it. But getting it right is more important than just getting it done.
Great insight!