Duke is not currently mulling changes to its admissions policies, but single-choice early-action policies may be gaining momentum.
More than a thousand high school seniors will breathe a sigh of relief at midnight tonight as a few straggling students mail their applications to become Blue Devils at the final deadline for early admissions. They have all cemented their commitment—promising that if Duke offers them a place in the Class of 2008, they will accept.
But several of the schools wooing the same students as Duke are not asking for the same guarantee. Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities are going into their second year under a single-choice early-action policy, in which students can apply early to only one school but are not bound to attend.
Duke is not currently mulling changes to its admissions policies, but single-choice early-action policies may be gaining momentum. The National Association for College Admission Counseling, the official organization that governs college admissions, endorsed single-choice policies at its October conference after a year of contention among NACAC members. Before the recent amendment, the few schools employing single-choice early-action policies were in violation of NACAC agreements.
Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions at Duke, said the University would likely consider an early action policy in the next few years when more data about its advantages is available.
“I haven’t yet drawn up my own list of the pros and cons of early action versus early decision,” Guttentag said. “I wouldn’t bring it up until I had a chance to think it through in some depth.”
When Yale and Stanford changed their policies last year from binding early decision to single-choice early-action, both schools saw spikes of about 50 percent in their early applications. The number of early applications to Duke remained relatively steady even though some Ivy League schools with binding early admissions programs saw a dip in their application numbers.
Richard Levin, president of Yale University, has called the move to a non-binding program a first step toward eliminating early admissions programs altogether. He has campaigned for colleges to abandon early programs because he believes they limit student flexibility and inherently discriminate against students seeking financial aid.
In order to abolish early admissions, a large group of schools would have to act together because schools currently use early applications to compete for students, several admissions officials said.
Duke President Richard Brodhead was dean of Yale College when it switched its admissions procedure. He recently said, however, that binding and non-binding programs are only minor distinctions.
“The great question is about the value and demerits of early at all,” Brodhead said. “Once you’ve got the concept of early, then you can slice it and dice it as you wish.”
In recent years much criticism has been levied against binding early decision programs. Since students are obligated to attend the school, they cannot consider alternative financial aid packages, giving wealthier students an advantage. Opponents also say early decision programs force high school students to make a choice about college too early.
Early action programs, in which students apply early but do not have to commit to the school until May, give students an opportunity to consider different financial aid packages and decide among colleges.
“It’s about getting a more diverse pool socioeconomically,” said Richard Shaw, dean of admissions at Yale. “It encourages kids to go ahead and take their shot.”
Universities use binding early programs to guarantee a competitive yield rate, and admissions officers said it helps them construct a more balanced class. Single-choice early-action programs alleviate much of the criticism of early admissions, but they also can strain the school’s resources, officials said.
When a university receives a plethora of early applications, it prevents admissions officers from travel and active recruitment because they have to read them, Guttentag said. Other schools have redistributed resources and hired part-time help to enable non-binding policies.
Shaw said at Yale few of the students admitted early notified the university of their plans to attend until the final deadline in May. “We were a nervous wreck,” he said. Without the guaranteed matriculants, admissions officers had to rely on historical yield rates to know how many students to admit during the regular admissions process.
None of the schools with single-choice early-action programs reported a substantial difference in the quality of the class ultimately admitted or enrolled—a fact Guttentag pointed to as part of the case against switching. “If in the end, you end up with more or less the same class, it mitigates some of the reason,” he said.
Officials from smaller colleges have complained that single-choice plans allow a small group of elite universities to influence admissions outcomes at other schools. Yale officials noted that the problem stems from early admissions in general rather than from a single-choice early-action policy.
They touted their single-choice plan as a way to work within the framework of early admissions. “They don’t feel themselves finding pressure to apply early someplace and then find that they have a change of heart,” Shaw said. “In this system you can have a change of heart.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.