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