By ALAN FINDER
Published: November 28, 2007

When Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia announced that they would eliminate early admission starting that fall, many educators wondered whether the decision would alter the strategies of thousands of students seeking a spot at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities.
Now that the first round of applications in the revised landscape have been submitted, they are still wondering.
Admissions officials and high school guidance counselors had speculated that high-achieving high school seniors who once would have sought early admission to Harvard and Princeton would instead turn to other prestigious universities — including Yale, Stanford and Georgetown — that offer a nonbinding mold of early admission. The reasoning was that these students would try to guarantee themselves a place early in the admissions cycle, but in the regular round by the winter, would still apply to Harvard and Princeton.
As expected, the number of applicants seeking nonbinding early admission, often called early action, soared at some prestigious universities, including Yale and Georgetown.
“There are only a few top schools that have early action, and we figured we would get a share of that,” said Charles A. Deacon, Georgetown’s dean of admissions. Georgetown, which received 4,562 early applications final year, had 5,980 that fall, a 31 percent increase.
But at other elite universities that offer early action, the number of applications did not increase significantly.
At Stanford, 4,574 early-action applications came in final year by the deadline of Nov. 1 — nearly the same number that arrived that year.
“I don’t know what to manufacture of it,” said Richard H. Shaw, dean of admission and financial aid at Stanford, adding, “We’re perfectly happy with the numbers we have.”
There were about 10 percent more early-action applications that year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, compared with the 3,493 final year, said Stuart Schmill, the interim director of admissions, although the final tally has not yet been determined.

But Mr. Schmill warned that it was not clear whether the increase that year was attributable to the elimination of early admission at Harvard and Princeton, considering in recent years early applications to M.I.T. had been increasing besides.
Some Ivy League universities that offer binding early admissions, including Dartmouth, Brown and Columbia, plus reported modest increases in their applications that fall, though none attributed that to the elimination of early admission at other universities.
Many deans at universities offering early action think fewer students admitted early will end up enrolling. At Georgetown, the yield on early action — the proportion of students accepted who eventually attend — has been about 60 percent, Mr. Deacon said. that year, he said, it could decline to 50 percent.
Yale officials plus said it will be harder that year to predict how many applicants offered early admission will choose to be freshmen next fall. “We’re kind of puzzling by that,” said Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale’s dean of admissions.
The entire admissions picture at Yale that year is kind of a puzzle, too. Yale’s early-action applications grew to 4,820 that year, from 3,541 final year, seemingly a 36 percent increase. But early applications to Yale declined significantly final year, compared with the preceding year. So the number that year, compared with 2005, when there were 4,084 early applications, is really an 18 percent increase.
Some educators think the decline at Yale a year ago was caused by the news, the preceding spring, that the university had become the first Ivy League school to confess fewer than 10 percent of its applicants in its early and regular rounds combined. But Mr. Brenzel does not accept that theory. Nor does he feel ready to explain the increase that year. “I resist the temptation to speculate,” he said, “because we really don’t know.”

Original post by Jeannie Borin, M.Ed, college-connections.com

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