Early decision has recently become the subject of media and federal attention, prompting questions about the future of the policy.
The College's admissions committee will meet over the next three days to select approximately 110 students to accept. The committee is very stringent about its early decision policies. "We restrict ourselves to accepting 30 percent of the class early. We don't want to undermine the socioeconomic diversity of the class," said Parker.
Other schools' admissions offices, however, are not as strict with their programs. "The world of early decision has divided itself in half. One group has deliberately capped the number of students it accepts early. Those schools include Dartmouth, Williams and Swarthmore. Schools such as Penn, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia are accepting half or more of their class early," Parker said.
In addition to the claim that early decision limits diversity, the use of early decision to boost a college's statistics ranking has caused concern."I think that the selective colleges and universities of the land have moved ever more into early decision for not the best reasons," said President Anthony Marx. "One is that it is administratively convenient, and secondly, it allows us to lock in a certain percentage of the class and thereby boost our yield. It is fed by the competition of the rankings and is not the best way for the leading colleges and universities of America to make their early decision choices."
Marx noted, however, that there were legal constraints on the extent to which colleges can cooperate in drafting admissions policies. If colleges fail to make necessary changes, the government might enact policies that would not be well-designed, according to Marx. The U.S. Senate is currently discussing the issue.
Marx believes one solution could be a cooperative effort by colleges to change the way they use early decision. "I have argued to my fellow college and university presidents that we should find a way to do this collectively," Marx said. "No one institution wants to unilaterally end early decision. That is why I have called for the collective action of the leading colleges and universities to rethink how far we've gone on this."
The admissions office made one modification to the review process this year to comply with recent Supreme Court decisions limiting the use of race as a factor in college admissions. "We have made a slight revision based on the Supreme Court decisions. We used to do three rounds of committee, now we will do two. It won't affect who we select," said Parker. Eliminating the third round will help the committee evaluate applicants as a complete package, without considering factors that might prompt legal challenges. "We are doing this to be extremely cautious to make sure that we are in compliance with the Supreme Court," he said. "This will allow us to consider candidates in the fullness of who they are."
The process of reviewing early decision applications and making admissions decisions is intricate but quick. Members of the admissions committee have less than a month between the Nov. 15 deadline for applications and the scheduled Dec. 11 mailing of admissions letters to make their decisions.
During that time, several phases are involved in the process. "Prior to going into committee, regional readers convene and decide which applicants they feel are competitive," said Parker. Once those students' applications reach the admissions office, they are read by at least two people, according to Parker.
The final step of this process is the admissions committee meeting in which the admissions selections are made. Following the committee's decision, the College Committee of Admissions and Financial Aid reviews the selections. Parker proposes the accepted group as a whole to the committee, which is comprised of faculty members. "[Members of the committee] are there so that if there is anything at odds with the College's mission, they would stop us from doing it," said Parker. An example of this would be accepting two-thirds women and only one-third men.
The percentage of admitted early decision applicants is considerably higher than the percentage of admitted regular decision applicant. Parker explained that this difference represents the difference in the subgroups of applicants in each phase rather than leniency in early decisions admissions. "There are a disproportionate number of alumni children and a disproportionate number of athletes who apply early. About half the athletes who we admit apply early, which is probably also true about alumni kids," he said.
For the time being, the College will continue with its early decision program and limit the number of students it accepts through early decision.