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There's been some coverage of a boom in the number of students applying Early Decision or Restricted Early Action to college this fall. I'm much more interested in the number of students colleges are *admitting* early this year.
It's early days yet. Full numbers are not available at many places. Lots of colleges that do ED do 2 rounds of it, so it's too soon to compare this year with last year.
I don't care about surging application numbers or declining admit rates (funny how those travel together, right?), because that's an issue for the advantaged--and they'll be fine, despite the concerns of their consultants.
I care about admit numbers since ED tends to favor wealthier students, so if schools are increasing the share of the total class that's ED, it likely means more spots for the rich. https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-boon-for-colleges-and-wealthy-families-early-decision-is-unfair-and-here-to-stay/
Here's what the changes look like in terms of numbers admitted.
It's not encouraging, however, to see a public university like UVA go from 748 ED admits last year to 968 this year. They're planning to admit a full quarter of their class ED this year.
Notably, UVA joined Harvard and Princeton in 2006 when they dropped early admissions plans and hoped to encourage others institutions to follow their lead.
It did not work. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/harvard-and-princeton-return-to-early-action-policies/2011/02
It did not work. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/harvard-and-princeton-return-to-early-action-policies/2011/02
UVA started up EA again in 2011 and then started an ED round in 2019, becoming, as @wpnick noted, the first flagship to do so. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-to-become-only-major-state-flagship-school-with-binding-early-decision-admissions/2019/05/29/4694f55a-824e-11e9-bce7-40b4105f7ca0_story.html
It is very much worth worth mentioning that Princeton decided to drop its early EA plan this fall, perhaps recognizing that giving more advantages to the wealthy in the middle of a pandemic is not the best thing to do.
Once again, no one followed their lead.
Once again, no one followed their lead.
