Dissent: One Admissions Process, Early

There is no question that the current two-tiered approach to college admissions benefits schools. They are able to guarantee that a good percentage of their incoming class will be filled with first-rate students, they can bolster their yield ratios for the overly touted U.S. News and World Reports ranking and they are better able to plan the size of the incoming class.

Although it is less clear how the two-tiered system benefits applicants, the most important advantage early decision gave to students was that it helped borderline applicants get into their first-choice colleges because they were willing to make the commitment to attend if accepted.

Eliminating early decision programs and replacing them with early action programs takes away the only real advantage that early application had to offer students, and it completely destroys any incentive that schools had to continue the program.

The staff argues that early applicants should be given no advantage over regular applicants, so students hoping that an early commitment will give them the boost to get in will no longer receive any benefit from their early application. Since the decisions are not binding, schools will not improve their yield, and they will be unable to effectively control class composition, leaving them with no incentive to incur the costs of processing an extra round of applications. The result of the staff’s opinion would be the elimination of all early applications except at the wealthiest schools, and it would force seniors to live through an extra semester of anxiety.

A more sensible solution would be to rid all schools of the two-tiered approach, moving all application deadlines to a single, early round. This solution removes the two-tiered pitfalls from the admissions process, avoiding unnecessary costs for schools, while retaining the best perk of early acceptance for students: a well deserved, restful spring semester before entering college.