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Latest Harvard Announcement Is Not Just Spin
Most consumers of media are savvy enough to realize that some “announcements” are significant, and others are not very important at all. This week’s announcement by Harvard, that it will be eliminating early admissions beginning with the incoming class of fall 2008, is significant. While other schools may disagree, Harvard is truly the leader of higher education in America, and policy changes the school makes have a ripple effect throughout the college and university landscape. In this particular instance, admissions directors of many top schools are already speculating that Harvard’s decision to do away with early admissions will, at minimum, cause them to review their own policies. Others go further, and boldly predict the widespread demise of early admission in the wake of Harvard’s decision.
You can read that story elsewhere, however, and this newly launched blog is intended to get inside the story and sometimes to challenge the status quo. My challenge today is to ask if eliminating early admissions, ostensibly for the purpose of reducing the overall “college admissions frenzy,” will really accomplish that in the end. For some students, early admissions does make an awful lot of sense. If they know that they really want to attend a certain school, and they have done the research which shows their chances of admission at that school are strong, then why not have those students apply early, get the college admissions frenzy behind them and move on with the rest of senior year of high school?
What do you think? For those who are parents of current college students, did your child apply early admission and what are the pros and cons you would like to share with your peers? If you are the parent of senior in high school or younger, how much have you been counting on early admissions as part of your own child’s admission strategy? Has your child’s high school guidance weighed in with his or her view? Please share your views with me and other parents by clicking on Comments.
This entry was posted
on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 10:35 am and is filed under College, General, High School, Incoming Freshman, Applications & Admissions.
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October 18th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
We have one daughter that is a junior in college, and a younger one that is a senior in high school. Even though they both claim(ed) to have a clear first choice, we did not allow them to apply early decision anywhere. I feel like it is too possible for them to have second thoughts or a total change of mind. We are letting our younger daughter apply Early Action to two of her favorite schools, as it is non-binding. I have very mixed emotions about the ever earlier admission cycle. On the one hand, I really think at very selective schools ED and EA enables their applications to get a bit of a longer ‘look.’ I kind of wish they would just move the whole process of applying and notification up, so that these kids don’t have to wait until April of their senior year to hear where they got in. If everyone could find out by say, February, they could relax and enjoy the rest of their senior year. As it stands now, the first half is consumed by the ridiculously overwhelming application process, and the second half to waiting and worrying. Seems kind of sad.