Early admissions no longer be binding

The future of early decision admissions programs was uncertain for about a month this summer after admissions officials at Harvard University suggested that the school would allow students it admitted to renege on binding admissions decisions from other schools.

The policy was first reported in The Harvard Crimson on June 6 and jeopardized a longstanding gentlemen's agreement between colleges that they will respect each other's binding early decision programs.

The issue received attention in several national newspapers because it threatened to collapse the entire early decision system.

But six weeks later, Harvard's Director of Admissions, Marilyn McGrath Lewis clarified her office's policy to The Crimson and said that it would not pursue such a policy.

McGrath Lewis explained this week that the school did not want to enroll students who had breached contracts with other schools. "We will rescind our offer of admission," she said. We don't like students who misrepresent themselves."

Suggestions that Harvard might change its policy came after the National Association for College Admissions Coucn









Harvard's decision came just as a new policy went into affect which prohibited colleges with non-binding early decision programs from restricting applicants





the admissions office announced that they would accept early action applications from students who were applying binding-early decisions elsewhere.



Many interpreted the decision as an attack on early decision, a policy that allows high school seniors to send in their applications earlier than the regular deadline and find out if they have been accepted in December instead of in March. In general, students may only apply to one school under early decision, which they are required to attend if they are admitted. Harvard and Georgetown's "Early action" programs are non-binding, but until this year, schools could prohibit students from applying early to other schools, whether through early action or early decision programs.

During its annual conference in San Antonio last September, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) made minor changes to its policy definitions of "early action" and "early decision" programs. Over the past year, however, these changes have stirred up a flurry of debate in the higher education community about commitment, character, and privacy.

In its most recent guidelines, NACAC made changes that affected schools with early action programs only Harvard and Georgetown Universities. The schools had previously requested that students applying to their early action programs not apply to another early program.

But now, according to the NACAC website, "institutions utilizing an early action plan may not place restrictions upon the number or type of other applications filed by the student." The goal of this change is to give students more than one early admission option.

NACAC is a national membership organization for guidance counselors and college admissions officers. It creates guidelines for all aspects of the college admissions process, including early action and early decision.

Early admissions programs assume that applicants are both extremely well qualified and that the school they apply early to is their first choice. By allowing students to apply to more than one institution early, admissions offices can no longer be so sure of students' enthusiasm about their school. A student they admit under early action may be committed to another institution by early decision.

As Harvard's Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis made quite clear, "there has been no change in Harvard's early action policy...Anybody who has made a binding commitment must honor that commitment." She added that Harvard admissions, "will not ask Tufts or Yale or anyone else to give us a list of students admitted early. In other words, we are not going to check. We believe this is illegal, and more importantly, wrong."

At present, no policy is in place to stop a student from applying early decision or early action to more than one school. If a student was accepted early decision to Tufts and early action to Harvard, for example, they could renege on the binding commitment to Tufts. In such a situation, though, Harvard's Lewis said, "We will rescind our offer of admission. We don't like students who misrepresent themselves."

Early admission programs were originally intended to ease the application tensions of highly qualified students who knew exactly where they wanted to attend college. In the past few years, selective schools have seen a surge in early applicants. Close to 40 percent of Tufts' class has been admitted by early decision in the past few years. Students now use early decision as a tool to get into a highly competitive school, since early admission rates are often higher than those of regular decision.

Ultimately, the responsibility of choosing the "right school" and upholding the early decision contract falls to the students. But with policy changes such as this one and the ever-increasing competition to get into a highly selective institution, it may be difficult for some students to give up an admissions advantage, however unethical it may be