Harvard's alterations affect students applying to the University in the fall of 2007, the graduating class of 2012. In the fall of 2007, the University will move to a unitary deadline of January 1 for all applicants, while maintaining its current April 1 decision notification and May 1 reply date.
Harvard's change was implemented in order to complement its efforts over the past few years to expand financial aid opportunities and equality in the admissions process. The University's efforts were aimed at addressing the increasing pressure, complexity and vulnerability to public criticism that the University has recently received.
Early admissions programs have been under scrutiny over the last several years because of the tendency to give already advantaged students a further edge in the admissions process at prestigious institutions. Many students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are unaware of some of the advantages of early admissions programs. Early admissions, for example, often increase a students' chances of being accepted into their first-choice school. In addition, students in need of financial aid often forfeit the opportunity to compare financial aid packages when committing to a binding early decision program.
The question of academics also comes into play. Those students who apply early and are accepted into their first choice college have less reason and motivation to excel academically during their last year of high school.
Harvard, backed by Princeton, is delaying its single admissions deadline until the fall of 2007 in order to give other institutions a chance to adjust their own admissions policies. Because in the past, Harvard generally accepted two-fifths of its entering class by early action, the University will now carefully monitor the impact of its policy change in a two to three-year trial period in order to ensure that there is no negative impact on the quality of the student body.
The College's Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Tom Parker called Harvard's decision to abolish early action a bold move. "Harvard can take a risk like this because they are such an important institution in higher education," he said. "But I'm glad that they did it because it opens the door to a more fair and competitive college application process," he said.
Parker believes that early admissions policies have been driven too much by the preoccupation of colleges to increase their perceived selectivity. "No one ever intended for it to be this kind of contest. The problem is not so much with early decision, but with schools that have been taking advantage of the process-those schools that accept between 40-50 percent of their incoming class on early decision to make their school seem more competitive," said Parker. "With early admissions, one student is accepted per available spot. With regular admissions, up to three students are accepted per spot." Through this type of manipulation, a college's acceptance rate can be misrepresented to seem lower than the acceptance rate and thus artificially make the college seem more selective.
Parker revealed that the College has no intention of eliminating its early decision policy. He believes that Amherst's policy does not take advantage of the early admissions process. "Amherst has been one of the good guys in early decision," said Parker. "We have deliberately capped our early decision acceptances to 30 percent of the entering class. In fact, last year we capped it at 28 percent."
Parker also discussed admissions at the other institutions, explaining that the elimination of early decision at smaller schools might discourage students from applying. "As far as the other institutions [are concerned], we can only carefully wait and see," he said. "If we were to eliminate early decision, Amherst's perceived selectivity would go up even higher, dissuading some students from applying. Also, other students who may want to apply early to Amherst [will be] prevented from doing so because they will simply apply to another college with early admissions."