New 'single-choice early action' admissions has varying effects

Changes to early admissions procedures at Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have resulted in mixed results, both at those schools and others across the country.

The new early application process endorsed by the three schools, called "single-choice early action," limits students to applying early to one school -- like in early decision (ED) -- but it does not oblige students who are accepted early to attend -- like in early action (EA).

For this year's application pool, the first year of the new hybrid early admissions program, Yale experienced an increase of 42 percent in early applications, and Stanford's early application rose by 62 percent. Harvard, on the other hand, saw a decrease in early applications of 47 percent.

Tufts currently offers early decision application deadlines in both November and January, as well as the regular decision deadline later in January.

"Many institutions, and especially members of NESCAC (New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference), use a two-round Early Decision format," Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin said. "The first round is the traditional round; the second round typically allows athletes in fall sports or students who need to document their academic achievement in the fall semester in order to strengthen their candidacy to utilize the ED option."

There are no plans for Tufts to convert to the new single-choice early action process. "If an early application signifies a student's 'first choice,' then a student should apply to one institution," Coffin said.

Richard Shaw, the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale, said that with the increase of applications, the Yale admissions staff has observed a greater quality in the students that have applied early, as they have been "more diverse culturally and economically."

The Yale admissions staff decided to implement the single-choice early action plan on its own with consulting with other schools, but Shaw encourages other schools to consider adopting this new application program.

"[Single-choice early action gives] greater flexibility for the candidates," he said. "They do not have to lock in [their decision]. They can wait until May 1 to decide and can choose to apply to other schools during the regular cycle. This allows those needing financial aid to compare their offers -- I think it's a very good model."

Although Shaw said that the volume of applications has risen remarkably due to the single-choice early action plan, it has not affected number of ED applications to Tufts. According to Coffin the Round I ED numbers (statistics for Round II are not yet available) "are comparable to last year's numbers." 797 students applied to ED-1 this year compared with 859 last year.

4,030 students applied with the single-choice early action program to Yale this year, and 2,330 students applied last year. Yale plans to continue with the single-choice early action system for next year.

Early decision remains the most popular admissions process according to a recent study by CNN. Harvard is the only one of the three schools to implement the new process which has not seen a rise in EA applications. The same CNN study suggested that the reason applications were up at Yale and Stanford and not Harvard was because Yale and Stanford previously used binding ED programs, whereas Harvard had both ED and EA options.

"I decided not to apply to Harvard on the new early choice program," Pittsford, NY high school senior Danielle Flemming said. "I never felt confident enough to apply only to one school."

Flemming, who is applying to Tufts in addition to Harvard, prefers the regular EA process to the single choice early action policy.

"Plenty of schools offer EA, and in my mind I would rather get all my applications out of the way early rather than wanting to apply and not being able to," she said. "[The single-choice early action] policy seems just like early decision just their own way. It's almost sneaky, since the papers say 'action,' my assumption would be apply to as many places as I wanted to," Flemming said.

Flemming said she was not aware of this new application process, until she began her own research.

Montepelier, Vt high school senior Chloe Matthews is applying to Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Tufts. Matthews applied to the single-choice early action plan at Stanford.

"At Stanford, the admissions officers didn't really urge us to apply single-choice and wanted us to make sure that it was really our first choice," she said. "At Harvard, the admissions officers didn't really want to talk about it at all. They said it would be changing and the application deadline had passed at that point anyway."

Matthews likes the way that the single-choice early action plan is now because she feels that she has an advantage doing so since "not too many students understand it." Therefore, not many students end up applying single-choice, and she feels that if more schools adopt the single-choice early action plan, competition will become worse.

Out of Matthews' class of 88 students, only ten applied early to any schools.

Though Tufts was not directly affected by Yale, Harvard, and Stanford's switch to single-choice, other schools claim to have been. The University of Chicago experienced a decline of 17 percent in early applications, and MIT saw a decline of 22 percent.