by Stacy Waite, College Reporter
Universities around the nation have seen fluctuating numbers of early applicants due to changes in admission policies over the past year. Early applications at Yale and Stanford Universities, for example, have jumped dramatically this year, while Harvard University applications have plummeted.
After clamping down on their admissions policies this year, Harvard experienced a 47 percent drop in early applicants, while early applicants to Yale and Stanford rose in response to the schools’ decisions to offer more admissions freedom. Yale early applicants jumped by 42 percent, while Stanford’s jumped by 62 percent.
Instead of early decision, Yale and Stanford now offer “single-choice early action” admissions that do not bind early applicants to attend either university, but prohibit them from applying early to any other school.
Richard Shaw, dean of Yale University, feels the new policy adds more flexibility to a student’s admission decision.
“Single-choice early action doesn’t lock the student in and allows them to compare financial aid, so a student to which aid is very critical has more flexibility with this policy,” Shaw said.
Yale “single-choice early action” applicants for this semester had to apply by Nov. 1 and can expect an answer by the middle of December. Accepted early applicants then have until May 1 to make an enrollment decision.
“We’re lowering the number of applicants to other schools, but we are also distributing early applicants singly to most institutions,” Shaw said. “In the past, a student may have applied to five schools at once, but now they are applying to just one.” Shaw added that the new policy is a matter of honesty and integrity.
Shaw also said that as a result of the policy change, this year’s pool of Yale early applicants is more diverse, there is more flexibility for financial aid and there are a higher number of minority applicants.
“I think we are getting students who are really interested in Yale,” Shaw said. “The change wasn’t to our advantage because it’s harder to predict how the class will land, but it’s definitely more beneficial to the student, and we feel good about that.”
Yale’s new policy will affect nearly 4,000 early applicants in the 2004 fall semester out of the estimated 18,000 to 20,000 applicants in the total incoming freshman class.
Despite these advantages, other universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University have been affected by the new admission standards. M.I.T., for example, saw a 22 percent decrease in early applicants, and Princeton saw a similar decrease in early admission applicants.
Although some universities have felt pressure to rearrange admission in response to these changes, the University of Wisconsin, which does not include early action or early decision options and operates on a rolling admissions system, is not planning on doing so.
“Rolling admissions operates the same way [as early action],” said Keith White, associate director of UW admissions. “If a student applies earlier in the year, they get a response earlier.”
White feels that rolling admissions offer students the same opportunities to compare and contrast schools as early action programs.
“Rolling admissions offer every advantage of early action without any of the inhibitors,” he said. “It gives more freedom and flexibility, ultimately, to the student.”
UW Communications spokesman John Lucas agreed that the UW has no plans to follow in the fashion of Yale and Stanford admissions.
“It’s a different kind of philosophy here,” he said. “We’ve always felt that students who apply within the admissions time frame deserve equal consideration, no matter at what point we receive their application.”
Lucas feels that UW admissions policies already produce a more than adequate student body.
“We feel confident with the number of applications we’ve received for a limited number of spots,” Lucas said. “We’ve brought in the most talented freshman class this year, and making any changes would not have that big of an impact.”
