Why early decision admissions at elite colleges is troubling

(Originally posted as a twitter thread on January 31, 2021)

Applying to college early decision REALLY improves your odds of getting in. My alma mater Middlebury will be accepting 34% of students who applied ED this year – and just 11% of students who applied regular decision. This isn’t good… (thread)

The reason is simple: applicants who apply early tend to already have advantages over peers. So accepting 3x as many ED applicants as regular admissions ones gives a leg up to the people who need it least. It exacerbates educational inequities.

Why do early decision applicants tend to be advantaged? First, unlike many students, they know enough by fall to apply for college. Informed parents, savvy school counselors, coaches, or private tutors can all play a role in preparing them – supports many kids don’t have.

And second, their families are well-off enough to feel ok about committing to a college without seeing a financial aid package. Students who worry about affordability & want to compare financial aid packages don’t apply ED.

So the higher acceptance rate for early-decision students means more spots for advantaged applicants. It suggests Middlebury’s willingness to trade equity for certainty.

A few caveats: it’s worth noting that the early decision applicant pool is different from the regular decision pool – athletes apply ED, as do students in special cohorts like the Posse Foundation – so this isn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison.

It’s possible that early decision applicants are just extremely highly qualified. They probably are. There just aren’t enough spots at a selective liberal arts college like Midd for all the brilliant people who apply…

And Midd’s early decision isn’t just for WASP-y New Englanders. About 25% are students of color, 25% are international, & 15% are first-gen college students, per the college’s news release.

But early admitted students are more white than the student body as a whole (75% to 63%). They are almost certainly wealthier. They still collectively represent privilege.

Colleges like Middlebury provide truly amazing educational & professional opportunities, as I’ve experienced firsthand. Like any institution, operating the college requires tough tradeoffs. Maybe Midd’s inequitable admissions strategy allows other worthy efforts to happen.

But it seems at least worth asking whether there’s a better way to select a student body, one that doesn’t advantage the already-advantaged applicants and leave fewer opportunities for everyone else.

At a college in which there are more students from the top 1% of households than the bottom 60%, early decision is a pipeline for the privileged.

To live up to its stated value of equity, Middlebury – and other colleges like it – may need to rethink its approach to early & regular decision admissions. /end

Originally tweeted by Nathan Arnosti (@n_arnosti) on January 31, 2021.