Harvard Rejects its Early Admit Program
It's a move that could signal more higher ed reform ahead
One of the dirty secrets of university admissions is that colleges compete for the best students just as aggressively as students compete for a spot at the best schools. Early admit programs were thought to be one of the most effective ways to serve the demands of both. Top students can sidestep the anxiety of the regular process by receiving a decision (usually in mid-December), and the admit rates are usually significantly higher for those who apply early. Colleges, for their part, can better hook and hold the best and the brightest applicants, because an early acceptance offer is often binding.
That's why Harvard University's decision last week to abandon its early action option and urge other schools to follow is sending minor shock waves through the higher ed universe. In doing so, the school now concedes what critics have long charged, that the practice is detrimental not only to low-income students-who need to compare financial aid offers from multiple schools-but to the goals of admissions in general. "Many perceived [early decision] as advantaging the advantaged," says William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College.
Accountability. Overall, Harvard admits about 9 percent of all applicants, but 21 percent of those who apply early get in. And the university isn't hard up for applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds, either. In an effort to increase socioeconomic diversity, Harvard already offers a program that lets students whose annual family income is $60,000 or less earn their degrees without charge. Between the classes of 2008 and 2010 (the first to benefit from the program) there was a 31 percent increase in students who qualified for the aid, Fitzsimmons says.
So Harvard's move signals concern about more than its student body's diversity: It foreshadows a possible push by the federal government to reform the higher education system. Later this month, the secretary of education will release a scathing report on the country's colleges and universities. A draft of those findings gives the schools failing grades in the areas of access, affordability, and accountability. "We read the newspapers," Fitzsimmons says, when asked if the school's decision anticipated the report's release. He added that the decision has been under consideration at Harvard for years.
Others interpret Harvard's decision as a key turning point. "We are seeing higher education attempt to define itself and reform itself," says Lloyd Thacker, executive director of the Education Conservancy, which lobbies for education reform. "Enrollment management through early decision was a business model, not an academic one."
It's unclear whether Harvard's move will prompt other schools to follow suit. Other top schools stopped short of nixing early admit programs. "It is not clear that eliminating early admissions will result in the admission of more students from low-income families," said Yale President Richard Levin in a statement. Since such students are underrepresented in the Ivy League applicant pool, what is more helpful is the improved financial aid packages Harvard, Yale, and others have offered in recent years, Levin says.
In 2002, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill stopped its binding early decision program because of worries about the impact on who gets in. Harvard and Yale also dropped their binding early decision options, but the anticipated landslide of other colleges moving away from early admissions never happened. Meanwhile, UNC-Chapel Hill has seen no decline in the quality of its applicant pool. In fact, it has gotten better, according to Chancellor James Moeser. "We hope that more schools make the same decision about early admissions," Moeser says. "It's our responsibility to lead the way in reform and avoid the federal government stepping in."
This story appears in the September 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
