College ‘Early Admission’ Policies Come Under Fire

Kaitlyn Trigger and two friends gathered around a barbecue in a Hancock Park backyard the other night and happily stoked a small fire with shreds of torn-up paper.

As family members snapped pictures, the young women, three seniors at Los Angeles’ private Marlborough School, tossed in pieces of the applications they had toiled over for Harvard, MIT and other prestigious universities. With a mixture of delight and relief, they celebrated their admissions--months early--to their first-choice schools.

“We had chips and dips and Oreos,” said Kaitlyn, 17, who will attend Yale University in the fall. “We feel very, very good about being done.”

But for all the joy at the bonfire celebration, another sort of conflagration has broken out nationally over whether the admissions process that benefited these students is such a good idea.

A growing number of college officials, guidance counselors and education experts would like to eliminate, or sharply curtail, early admission--a process in which many colleges admit a substantial percentage of their students in the fall. Controversy is particularly heated regarding many early admission programs that require applicants to give up the chance to apply elsewhere.

Opponents of early admissions offer several criticisms. The practice intensifies an unhealthy level of competition for admission to the nation’s top colleges and universities, they say.

Moreover, critics say, early admission unfairly gives a leg up to some applicants, mostly those who already have many advantages--students at elite private schools and wealthy public schools where families and guidance counselors know how to work the angles of the admissions system.

“We’re putting too much pressure on kids, robbing them of a lot of their senior year and forcing them to make decisions too early,” said Vivian Saatjian-Green, head counselor at Beverly Hills High School, who actively discourages many students from applying under early admission programs. “Most of them are just not ready.”

Should System Be Abandoned?

The president of Yale University, where Kaitlyn won early admission, fueled the debate earlier this month by proposing that Yale and other elite institutions consider abandoning the early programs. In a sign of just how competitive the admissions process has become, he said his university could not make such a move alone.

Richard C. Levin said he became more and more troubled in recent years as he learned of the negative effects of the early admissions programs on students and high schools. He hopes to start a national conversation on the subject.

“I’ve become increasingly convinced that we need to take another look at what we’ve wrought here,” he said.

The debate has also been fueled by new research demonstrating that students who apply under early decision programs have a better chance of getting in than those who wait until spring.

Even some students who gain early admission to the colleges they want say the process involves too much pressure, too soon.

“The whole thing has gotten way out of control,” said Chelsea Burkett, a relaxed 17-year-old--newly admitted to Stanford. She said many of her friends have suffered severe stress as they wait to hear. “People just really lose sight of what’s going to matter in the long run, like getting an education.”

Parents of students who have gained admittance early also confess to a few misgivings.

“These kids have to commit to a college when they’re barely 17 years old,” said Helen Hartung, whose daughter Molly was recently accepted to Princeton. “It’s a fairly adult decision to have to make at that age.”

But Hartung said her daughter and the family decided they were “willing to play the game,” largely because of the advantage they and others believe an early application conveys.

The use of “early decision” and “early action” programs, which, in different ways, grant admission to students months ahead of the usual spring notifications, has soared in recent years and is at what some say are record highs.

Many top private colleges now accept more than a third of their freshman classes in the weeks before Christmas, significantly reducing the number of spots available in the spring. For next year, Stanford already has picked 34% of its freshman class; Yale has chosen 42% of its. The University of Pennsylvania has locked up 49.5% of its entering class.

Some public schools, including the University of Virginia, also have early admissions policies; most in California do not.

The nine-campus University of California accepts applications in November each year. It has no formal early admissions program, although a spokesman noted that some campuses, including UC Irvine, guarantee admission early to students who qualify under a program to save seats for students in the top 4% of their high schools’ graduating class.

Programs Enhance Schools’ Standing

Early admission policies have existed for at least 20 years. But their use--and the controversy around them--has grown in the last decade, especially since the mid-1990s, when Yale, Princeton and Stanford all instituted binding early decision.

The programs clearly benefit colleges, allowing schools to lock in talented young scholars and enhance their own standings in the influential college rankings. Those guides, published by U.S. News & World Report and others, judge colleges in part by the proportion of students who accept their offers of admission, which is pushed up under binding early decision programs.

Supporters contend that the programs have value for a small number of success-driven high school seniors who make up their minds early and avoid the ordeal of sending applications to numerous colleges.

“If you have a very well-prepared student who is mature, knows what he’s looking for, has fallen in love with a school and found a program he likes there, then I think it’s a great idea,” said Hector Martinez, director of college guidance for the Webb Schools, twinned, single-sex boarding schools in Claremont.

Just as often, though, Martinez said, a student who has just heard about the programs will race into his office and pant, “I want to do early admission somewhere; can you find me a good school?’ I tell them it doesn’t work like that.”

Some admissions deans such as the University of Pennsylvania’s Lee Stetson, an outspoken advocate of early admissions, say the policies also improve the atmosphere on campus by allowing colleges to choose a core group of students who passionately want to be there.

“They’re telling us we’re their first choice,” said Stetson. “That adds a special level of positive reinforcement to the campus community and it ought to count for something.”

But many critics say the early admissions process is unfair, rewarding wealthy students, often from private or suburban public high schools, who can take test preparation courses and college entrance exams early and settle quickly on a first choice.

At many less prosperous schools, counselors say that even if students complete their SATs and other entrance exams by the junior year, many would still be unable to apply early because they often need to compare the financial aid packages offered by various colleges. That is not possible under the binding early decision programs.

At Jefferson High School east of downtown Los Angeles, college counselor Esther Walling said that because she doesn’t want to raise the pressure for students, she generally doesn’t make them aware of the possibility of early admission. Many of the students are the first in their families even to consider college and face enough stress as it is, she said.

‘I’m Really Burned Out’

Even at schools that serve wealthier communities, some students complain that the accelerated timetable means that their high school experience becomes little more than a grueling exercise aimed at making it into a good college.

“I’m really burned out right now,” said Kate Thomas, a Marlborough senior who applied early to the University of Chicago but received a letter last week telling her that her application has been deferred until the regular spring cycle. With that pending, Kate said she must now finish her paperwork for other prospective colleges--nearly a dozen in her case--by Jan. 1.

“It turns the whole thing into this really long process, where you’re prepping for the PSAT and SAT [exams] in ninth grade, then taking all the tests and starting to make decisions about where you want to go,” she said. “Sometimes it seems like too much.”

There is an alternative to early decision programs that critics tend to find less objectionable: “early action.” Under this program, students learn early if they are accepted to a particular college, but have until May 1 to choose between that offer and later ones from other schools. Harvard, Caltech and Georgetown offer this program but some, including Harvard, often fill at least half their freshman classes early.

Fueling the debate over early decision is the suspicion among some critics that students who apply early have a better likelihood of being admitted than those who don’t.

Stetson acknowledges that students who apply early to Penn enjoy a slight preference over regular applicants. “If they’re willing to declare us their first choice, we’re willing to consider giving them a tip into the class,” he said.

Admissions figures for many schools show that a higher proportion of early applicants get in, compared with those applying on the regular cycle. For instance, last year, 29% of Yale’s early applicant pool was accepted, compared with 11% of its regular pool, officials said. The figures were similar at Stanford, where 23% of those applying early got in, compared with about 11% of the much larger regular pool.

Better Odds for Early Applicants

Many admissions officials explain that early applicants tend to be high-achieving students with higher test scores and better grades than those in the regular applicant pool.

But a recent study by researchers at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government suggests that the odds improve for any early applicant to a competitive school.

The researchers analyzed five years’ worth of admissions records from 14 elite colleges with early admissions programs--about half a million applications--and found that early applicants gain an advantage equal to scoring 100 extra points on the SAT.

The study, first reported by James Fallows in the September issue of Atlantic Monthly, landed like a bombshell in the offices of high school counselors across the country, many said.

The conclusions, many say, underscored concerns by wary college admissions officers who oppose such policies.

“We really believe that it disadvantages the students,” said Laurel Tew, director of admissions at the University of California. “We want students to have time to make the best match with an institution, and we don’t think it’s a good idea for them to lock themselves in too early.”