Lonely At the Top: Apparently TOO Lonely - Harvard and Princeton Reinstate Early Decision

Even elite institutions have to pay attention to the competition. Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia, three of the US's most elite undergraduate institutions announced three years ago they were eliminating early decision because research showed it favored higher income students from schools in better neighborhoods (and therefore discriminated against poorer students who might be just as entitled academically.

They did so to the applause of many who felt it was a noble thing to do and, besides, what high school senior in his or her right mind would turn down even the possbility of Harvard or Princeton?

Well, it seems a LOT of high school seniors, stressed after four years of college admissions pressure, were only too happy to get it over with and accept admissions from marginally less competitive colleges (Brown, Stanford?)in order to be able to relax a bit for the balance of their senior year. Does this mean sanity is returning to college admissions? No. It means competition lives and even the most competitive institutions - who accept approximately 1 out of every 30 applicants - are not committed to the fairness versus "We're #1" tradeoff.

From Cathy Rampell at the New York Times Economix blog:

"A real-life allegory on the perils of unilateral action: First Princeton tried to be the leader on grade deflation, but no one followed. Then Harvard and Princeton decided to end their early admission programs, on the grounds that they were unfair to poor students. Again, apparently few schools followed suit.

While Princeton has still held firm on its stricter grading policies, both Princeton and Harvard on Thursday reinstated their early admission programs. (The University of Virginia, which had also ended its early admission program with great fanfare, gave in last year.)

From the Daily Princetonian article:

“We have carefully reviewed our single admission program every year, and we have been very pleased with how it has worked,” Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said in a University press release. “But in eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same and they haven’t.”

Tilghman explained that one consideration that played into the University’s decision was that high school students would apply to other schools early even if they thought of the University as their first choice.

“By reinstating an early program, we hope we can achieve two goals: provide opportunities for early application for students who know that Princeton is their first choice, while at the same time sustaining and even enhancing the progress we have made in recent years in diversifying our applicant pool and admitting the strongest possible class,” Tilghman said.

And from the 2006 press release in which Princeton announced it was ending the early admissions program:

“We agree that early admission ‘advantages the advantaged,’” Tilghman said. “Although we have worked hard in recent years to increase the diversity of our early decision applicants, we have concluded that adopting a single admission process is necessary to ensure equity for all applicants.