BREAKING: No, Really, Breaking — Harvard Ends Early Admissions
Harvard is announcing it will eliminate all forms of early admission, starting with the class of 2011 — finally acknowledging that such programs are the grotesque province of hypercynical applicants bent on improving their own odds at the expense of the disadvantaged.
Forgive the editorializing, please. This is both shocking news and yet long overdue, and it stirs all our leftover resentments about the college-choosing process. Yeah, we got in early decision. And everything about it was strategic — from the higher early acceptance rate to the promise of smoking pot and getting D’s from Dec. 15 till high school graduation. It felt okay, because early applicants think they’re calculating mostly against other equally calculating students. But there are undeniable consequences for students in school districts without top counselors, without adults who know how to grease the admissions process. And the universities themselves are just as complicit in the rankings-friendly game.
So anyway, we applaud this move by Derek Bok, who is apparently under the delusion that he’s actually president of Harvard, not just a post-Summers stand-in. It’s like King Ralph!
College Rejects Early Admission [Crimson]
Harvard Ends Early Admission, Citing Barrier to Disadvantaged [NYT]
Harvard to eliminate early admission [harvard.edu]
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September 12th, 2006 at 12:32 am
How odd.
September 12th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Early Admissions/Decision isn’t a complete sham. Why do you feel the need to so stridently proclaim it one? It has its legitimate purpose, which a reasonable person — able to see both sides of an issue — wouldn’t have that much trouble acknowledging. You make the case against it, which is fine, but not when you basically present the issue like there are no respectable, valid reasons for keeping (or rather, having it in the first place).
September 12th, 2006 at 9:22 am
I applied early, and for none of the sneaky reasons you mention. I knew where I wanted to go to school, and had my shit together enough to send things in for the early deadline. Brown was early action then, so I was just getting one application out of the way, just hearing back from one place early. I didn’t even know there was all that sneaky shit associated with early action & early decision. So keep in mind that not everyone who applied early was greasing the system. Sheesh.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I question how eliminating ED or EA will really ease all of the anxiety and pressure students face in applying to selective colleges. Without ED/EA, you are simply going to force more students to apply to more schools, since none of them would know if they are admitted early in the admissions cycle. Just imagine if all the elite schools eliminated this policy– you would simply have a frenzy of students having to apply to so many schools, feeding the college consultants business, increasing burdensome paperwork, and increasing the associated pressure and anxiety that parents and students face.
I do not believe that all of the selective schools will follow this appraoch–since many of them have benefited in copeting for top students by having them apply/accept early.
September 12th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
ED and EA may not be scams, but they have never been fair. ED came about as a way for schools like Amherst, Bowdoin, Dartmouth (hi alma mater) and others to compete for elite northeastern prep schoolers. Harvard, Yale and Princeton had a system whereby those prep schoolers, with deep pockets and exceptional educations already, would be funnelled into those universities. In order to prevent those priveleged WASPs from being gobbled up by that trio, smaller schools created enticements like early decision.
Since then, schools have had various explanations for ED and EA policies. The root cause of it all is money and competition. Shockingly.
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:37 pm
While I’m not saying that some of the motivations behind ED/DA were for the privileged, I’d like to point out the high cost of applying to colleges today, especially multiple colleges as students are pressured to do. If underprivileged applicants were made aware of the ED/EA option, they could potentially save hundreds of dollars in application fees by withholding other applications until they hear from the early school. It is not the school’s fault for having ED/EA, but for not reaching out more to certain groups to apply. The real imbalance in the college admissions process is that rich kids can afford to send applications to as many as 10, sometimes more (I’ve seen it happen) schools and increase their chances of getting in somewhere good.
December 15th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Early Decisison is a GREAT tool for students who know where they want to go and who also have knocked themselves out to do well on the SATs and in terms of their GPA –to eliminate this for purportedly politically correct reasons is ridiculous – all students should be held to the same standards –and if it is acceptable to permit affirmative action, which in my opinion is not a fair system for hard working middle class caucasian Americans, then Early Decision is certainly acceptable — the pendulum has swung too far left–what now…no SAT scores either is what I am hearing —sure —I defy any public school kid from middle america to go toe to toe with a big city private school kid —the latter are light years ahead in terms of education
February 1st, 2008 at 3:05 am
Hi boys!
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