Early admissions
I was really pleased to pick up the paper yesterday and read that Harvard has decided to stop its early admissions program. Yes, it’s just one school, and yes, as other school admissions directors were quick to point out, it’s easy to take the moral high ground when you’ve got little to lose. (Harvard could easily select just as qualified a class out of only the people it rejects each year.) But I do think it changes the terms of the discussion when it’s not just people looking in from outside who say "the current system is rotten" but also a major inside player.
James Fallows laid out the basic argument in the Atlantic five years ago, in a story called "The Early Decision Racket." His major points were echoed by Harvard’s president in announcing the decision:
Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvard’s students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.
What Fallows also explained — and neither the NY Times nor Washington Post stories covering Harvard’s announcement picked up — is how the growth of early decision has been driven by the US News and World Report rankings of schools. The more of your slots that you fill with students who have committed to attending, the fewer total students you need to admit to produce a given size class, and the more "selective" your school appears. (And Fallows should know where the bodies are buried — at one point, he was in charge of the rankings.)
Non-binding early action programs — which is what Harvard used to have, and several of the other very prestigious schools have — aren’t as pernicious as early decision, but I think dropping early admissions entirely sends a much stronger message. Maybe US News should award bonus points to schools that don’t have early admissions. (I’d love to see the rankings go away entirely, but they’re a huge moneymaker for US News, so I’m not holding my breath.)
Update: Princeton joins in.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Actually, Harvard’s early action program was pretty pernicious. Compare my college application process, coming from a rural public school, to my husband’s, coming from a prestigious DC private school. His college counselor told him that his chances of admission were greatly increased by applying for early admission. Mine had no suggestions. Instead, I looked at the explanation of early action and decided that it was only for superstars (you know, the perfect SATs who are first violin chair and president of the math club). Definitely not for people like little old me. Anyway, I definitely think its elimination is a good thing.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
I get the problem with early admissions (though hadn’t really thought much about it in the past), but what are your specific issues about ranking? I know why *I* dislike medical school rankings (having worked for one for almost eight years, we go through hell every year if we aren’t where our Board wants us to be, etc.) but I’m not sure what the larger social issues are…and I’m sure you do!
Educate me! Please.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I’m sure Elizabeth can say more about the rankings, but the biggest problems that I know of are (a) the rankings are based on a series of discrete numerical values, such as percentage of alumni who give money, number of faculty getting certain kinds of grants, selectivity of admissions, etc. (b) schools actively compete for the rankings by focusing on the particular criteria used to generate the rankings, in ways that administrators ADMIT are not really beneficial to good teaching, etc. (c) US News ADMITS to changing the criteria a little every year: dropping one measure, adding another. Why do they do this? Because if they didn’t, the rankings wouldn’t really change, and there’d be no reason to publish a new issue/book, and they’d stop making so much money.
It’s a little like the NCLB problem: just as students are now taught to pass standardized tests, colleges and universities are aiming for the rankings. And yet: the rankings are blatantly manipulative (primarily because they change the formula every year to juice the findings, “look who’s going up or down!”) and so the process of aiming for the rankings is blatantly manipulative, too. It takes resources away from education and puts them in a drive for a better ranking.
Our alumni organizations openly beg for more alumni to send in even $5, so that they can report a higher percentage of alumni giving and improve their rankings — which will generate more alumni dollars, not to mention more applications (which increasing applications will also increase the universities’ selectivity, thereby increasing their rankings, thereby….)
Not to mention the fact that the idea itself — YOU are ranked 40th, but YOU are ranked 41st — is idiotic. There are something like 2800 colleges and universities in the nation, and even removing the community colleges from the equation leaves you with too many to distinguish 1-2-3.
The US News rankings objectively distract administrators from attending to teaching and research.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
What Jody said.
And I think it makes it harder for guidance counselors to get the message through to kids and parents that Harvard and Yale and Stanford (or whatever) aren’t the best schools for every kid. And that kids should go to schools that match their style and interests, not the highest ranked schools they can get into.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Oh, and the rankings are a big part of the reason why other schools are reluctant to follow Harvard’s lead and drop early admissions. If they did, their “selectivity” would probably drop a bit, and their ranking might fall.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I had several classmates who applied early decision (binding) to their second and even third choice schools simply because they assumed that 1.) they wouldn’t get into their first choice school anyway, and 2.) it was better to just know you have a spot somewhere come the holidays, so you might as well get it over with.
I thought it was a shame. And the decisions to apply early seemed based more on their parents’ preferences (particularly legacies) than their own.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Another problem with the rankings is that colleges/universities play games about which classification they are in. I teach at a university that bounces around between “regional master’s level univ.” and “national liberal arts college.” The criteria are shaky, so it’s not quite clear what we’re being ranked for, and compared to whom.
Not to be contentious, Mrs. C., but was it the early action program or your college guidance that was pernicious? I know they are linked, but to me the real crime right now is the huge disparity in college guidance opportunities at different kinds of schools. My daughter’s “guidance” is pretty non-existent (small public high school), while her best friend’s (small private high school) is excellent. But is that the colleges’ fault?
Maybe I’m defensive because, for myself, I loved the non-binding early admit option. (I didn’t go to Harvard, though, and my alma mater no longer offers the option.) I did need financial aid, so I couldn’t have done the binding one, but knowing by Christmas that I COULD spend the next four years at my top choice (if the money came through, and it did) was huge. I see why it’s become a racket, but I don’t think it always was, and I am sorry for the change.
September 15th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
I remember there being a big difference between “early action” and “early decision” programs when I was a kid; Early action programs meant you were admitted, but didn’t have to say whether you would go. Early decision programs required you to commit.
I also thought, as a kid, that “early action” was for the super-steller, not the connected folks who could squeeze in under the wire if everyone knew what their first choice was. My college advice was probably decent (private school, a lot of attention, a fair number of folks going to high-profile colleges).
Hasn’t the early admissions games changed since the 80s? First, are they still early action programs? Isn’t Harvard ending an early action program, not an early decision program? Or did Harvard require you to commit to them if you were admitted? I’ve just been confused, in hearing this debate.
The rankings are pernicious for all the reasons outlined above, but, honestly, they don’t really affect the biggies; it’s the schools in the running but not at the top that play the game. (And you can be in the running in different ways — top public university is the one that my R1 would try to aim for, since it can’t compete with the private U’s)
bj
September 20th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Libby: it’s pernicious because it advantages kids who have “insider” track information. Kids from less competitive schools don’t have the information advantage. How many kids from less competitive schools didn’t bother to apply early and didn’t get in in the regular admission round, when they would have been admitted in the early round, even when compared to those privileged private school students who are in the know? In recent memory, there was only one other student from my high school who had even applied to Harvard. My husband had FIVE classmates who were admitted, all early action.
You are right that the quality of college counseling is a problem. My husband’s college counselor had lots of experience getting kids into the prestigious schools. Mine looked at my list of intended applications and said “Don’t you think you’re aiming a bit high?” I ignored her and applied anyway (admitted everywhere), but kids who were less certain of themselves and didn’t have the personal support (i.e., my parents) might very well be discouraged by that. On the other hand, why should my guidance counselor be well versed in negotiating Harvard’s admissions policies? It wasn’t particularly useful information for her. Her time was better spent being familiar with the local state school and the range of private colleges that most of the college bound members of my class actually attended (which, BTW, was about 25% of my graduating class) as well as a wide variety of vocational options. I don’t resent her for not knowing anything about Harvard (though the “aiming high” comment pisses me off), but kids like my husband and his classmates received a structural advantage from Harvard’s early action program. By ending early action, Harvard is eliminating that piece of the structural advantage. It is easier for Harvard to eliminate its piece of the structural advantage than it is to reform every guidance counselor in the country.