NYU Sticks By Early Admissions

Admissions officials at New York University told the campus newspaper that NYU will continue its early admissions program regardless of what Harvard, Princeton, or other schools do.

Viceprovost for Admissions and Financial Aid Barbara Hall told the Washington Square News that NYU's Early Decision program does not have the same impact on low-income applicants that Harvard's SCEA or Princeton's ED programs do.

"Early decision students get the same award a regular student will get," Hall said, eliminating the concern that the binding nature of ED acceptances might put early applicants at a disadvantage in negotiating financial aid.

Hall noted that NYU's ED program is unusual in another respect as well. Early applications to most colleges and universities have three possible outcomes: admit, deny, or defer to the regular admissions pool. By contrast, NYU either admits or denies all ED applicants in the ED round.

Hall said that NYU saw no point to deferring decisions. "If a student isn't admissible in December, nothing is going to make that student admissible in February," she said.

Just under 29 per cent of NYU's Class of 2010 was admitted under the school's binding ED program. NYU's overall acceptance rate in 2005-2006 was 28.4 per cent, compared to roughly 37 per cent for the ED pool.

Source: "NYU Will Keep Its Early Decision Program," by David Idol, Washington Square News, September 25, 2006

Princeton Will End Early Admissions Next Year

Princeton University has announced that it will end its early admissions program next year.

Applicants for Fall 2007 admission are the last cohort who will have the option of applying under Princeton's binding early decision program.

Princeton officials said that they began review of the University's early decision program some weeks ago, prior to Harvard's announcement that it was ending early admissions. Like Harvard, Princeton said that a desire for greater equality in admissions was the main reason for ending early admissions.

About one-half of Princeton's Class of 2010 was admitted through early decision. Princeton's acceptance rate for the 2005-2006 ED pool was 26.8 per cent, compared to 10.2 per cent for the regular pool.

Source: "Early Admissions Dropped," by Mike Shapiro and Chip McCorckle - the Daily Princetonian, September 19, 2006

Brown Goes Paperless - Almost

Starting this year, Brown University is no longer including a printed copy of its application form in the viewbook it sends to prospective applicants.

Admissions officers told the campus paper that the decision was made for reasons of effectiveness and economy. Only a quarter of 2006 applicants used paper applications, and most of them downloaded the form from Brown's website rather than using the printed copy included in the viewbook.

Brown Dean of Admission Jim Miller told the Brown Daily Herald that although his office printed 85,000 viewbooks for the 2005-2006 application season, only around 1,500 applicants used the printed form it included.

This year's viewbook will include a postcard that applicants can mail to Brown to request a printed application. Brown will use the money saved by omitting the application to help pay for a larger print run of viewbooks.

The BDH polled other Ivy League universities on their use of printed applications and found that at least two, Princeton and Dartmouth, will continue including a paper application in their viewbooks.

Source: "Admissions Office Scraps Paper Apps with Viewbooks," by Zachary McCune - the Brown Daily Herald, September 14, 2006

Harvard Says 'So Long' to Early Admissions

One of the inherent advantages enjoyed by college applicants who apply under early admission programs is that the simple fact of applying early communicates a student's strong interest in attending the school in question.

Starting next year, applicants to Harvard will no longer be able to call on this option. Harvard has announced that, beginning with 2007-2008 application season, all applications will be accepted and reviewed under the regular January 1 deadline.

This move may force some of next year's applicants to make a clear (or clearer) choice between Harvard and other selective schools early in the application season.

All but one of the other Ivy League member schools look set to continue their early decision programs. It's well known that they admit a disproportionately large share of their students from EA applicant pools. So what happens if Harvard is your top choice school, but you're also sincerely interested in Princeton?

You think you might increase your chances at Princeton by applying early, but Princeton's ED program is binding. If you were accepted at Princeton you would have to give up your dream of Harvard.

The answer to this quandary is obvious: you should apply to both schools under the regular, non-binding admissions deadlines. However, that resolution may not be that easy to accept for someone who has their heart set on the Ivy League and who thinks they need every admissions advantage they can get.

Harvard's move will also mean that no one will know whether or not they've been accepted before the April 1 notification date. That may be longer than some people can bear to wait. Some applicants may opt to apply for early admissions to other schools rather than endure the anxiety of waiting until spring to learn their college admissions outcomes.

Ironically, the gesture of foregoing the chance of winning early admission to another selective school in order to keep in the running for Harvard -- and the implicit willingness to wait until spring for an admissions decision -- might provide the same expression of strong interest in Harvard that applying under its early action program would have if it were still in effect.

Hobart & Smith Enroll Largest Freshman Class in 20 Years

Unexpectedly high admissions yield at Hobart and William Smith Colleges has resulted in the paired schools welcoming their largest incoming class in almost two decades, resulting in a housing squeeze that has moved some upperclassmen off campus.

Hobart & Smith welcomed 594 first-year students to campus this fall, making for a freshman class almost 9 per cent larger than the 545 students being planned for.

School officials told the local newspaper that they realized over the summer that the Colleges would face a housing crunch this fall because of the high yield. The Colleges responded by renting an off-campus apartment building where about 40 seniors and juniors are now living. Normally, almost all Hobart & Smith students live on campus for all four years of their time at the Colleges.

Hobart & Smith officials noted that this year's spike in freshman admissions coincides with pre-existing plans to expand total enrollment. The College had already been planning to increase enrollment to about 2,000 students over the next two years, up from the previous level of 1,850. Dean of Admissions Don Emmons told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle that the jump in first-year enrollment "actually comes at a good time for us." The colleges have the faculty and other resources needed to maintain educational quality for the larger freshman class, he noted.

Hobart & Smith's rising profile contributed to this year's jump in admissions yield, school official think. "I think I've got more kids in my [applicant] pool that have us as a first or second choice," Emmons said.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges are coordinating liberal arts colleges located in Geneva, New York, an upstate city about an hour's drive from Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca. Each school (Hobart for men and William Smith for women) has its own dean and its own admissions office, but the schools jointly operate co-ed living and campus facilities and classes. Applications to Hobart & Smith have increased by a third over the past 8 years.

Source: "Colleges Make Way for Freshman Class," by Matthew Daneman. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, September 12, 2006.

Housing Shortage Causes Brown Transfer Numbers to Plummet

The number of transfer students enrolling at Brown University this acadmic year is sharply lower than the number enrolled in past years, the Brown Daily Herald reports.

A total of 195 students transfered to Brown in 2005 -- 145 in the fall and 50 in the spring.

This year, by contrast, only 42 transfers will come to Brown. 22 transfers enrolled this fall and another 20 are expected to enroll in the spring.

Brown Dean of Admission Jim Miller told the Herald that transfer admissions were reduced because of a shortage of on-campus housing. Last year, a number of transfer students and other undergraduates had to be assigned to converted lounges because other housing was not available. Transfer admissions were lowered this year to avoid a repeat of that situation.

In the past, Brown enjoyed a reputation as an exceptionally "transfer-friendly" university, based both on the number of transfers it accepted each year and on the support extended to transfer students.

Source: "Transfers: Going the Way of the Buffalo?" - editorial, the Brown Daily Herald, September 7, 2006

New SAT Makes It Harder To Be Perfect

The essay requirement added to the revised SAT Reasoning Test has caused the number of students acing the test to plummet, the New York Times reports.

In 2005, over 1,000 students achieved a perfect 1600 SAT score, having scored 800 on both the math and verbal sections of the old SAT I.

This year, fewer than 250 students achieved a perfect 2400 on the revised version of the exam.

The essay seems to have made the difference between a perfect score and a near-miss in many close-but-not-quite-there cases. Just over 4,100 test-takers got a perfect 12 on the written essay -- and, evidently, only a small number of those students also scored 800s on the math and reading sections.

According to the NYT, a College Board analysis of high-scoring essays found that:

- Longer is better. Essays longer than one page were more likely to receive high scores than shorter essays were.

- Longhand is better. Essays written in longhand (cursive script) were more likely to receive high scores than printed essays were. (We suspect that this might be more a reflection of the 'longer is better' tendency than an independent factor, since it's easier to fill paper quickly when you're writing longhand than it is when you're printing.)

- Third-person is better. Essays written from the third-person perspective ('she,' 'he,' 'they,' 'one') were somewhat more likely to receive high scores than those written from the first-person perspective ('I' or 'we') were.

Source: "Perfect's New Profile, Warts and All," by Tamar Lewin. The New York Times, September 3, 2006

Know Your Rights as a College Applicant

The National Association for College Admission Counseling has published a brochure outlining students' rights in the college admissions process.

These rights include:

- Freedom from high-pressure and/or misleading sales tactics on the part of admissions representatives
- Access to complete and accurate information about the cost of attending an institution
- Access to complete and accurate information about enrollment and withdrawal procedures, including refund procedures
- Information on the completion and graduation rates for enrolled students
- Information about 'transfer-out' rates (i.e., how many community college students successfully transfer to 4-year schools)

For more information, download the brochure from the NACAC website:
http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/ForStudents

Fordham Admits Most Competitve Class Ever

Fordham University's Class of 2010 was selected from the most competitive applicant pool in the school's history, the campus paper reports.

Over 18,000 people applied for fall 2006 admission to Fordham, almost one-third more than the roughly 15,100 who applied the previous year.

The larger applicant pool caused Fordham's acceptance rate to drop to 46 per cent. Fordham's 2004 acceptance rate was approximately 55 per cent, and in the mid-nineties it was roughly 70 per cent.

Admissions officials said that this year's applicant pool was not only larger but also more accomplished. The average SAT score of this year's admits was 1205, compared to 1121 for the Class of 2000.

One Fordham program, the B.F.A. in Dance, accepted fewer than 15 per cent of its applicants this year. Although the program is less than ten years old, it has become one of the most competitive dance programs in the U.S., partly because of its affiliation with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. (Applicants must be accepted both by Fordham and by the Alvin Ailey audition panel.) Another reason for the dance program's status lies in its remarkable success in helping students find work in their field after graduation, with roughly two-thirds of graduates finding employment related to dance.


Source: "Class of 2010 Highly Selective, Highly Prepared for Success," by John DeSio - Inside Fordham online, August 24, 2006