Philip Fibiger

Harvard is going to ignore other schools’ early-decision contracts and allow students who have already been accepted at other schools in the early decision program to apply and enroll at Harvard. The college admissions system is already so royally screwed up, this break from the system will force other schools to react, dropping the entire process into near anarchy. Since schools just below Harvard in selectivity will now no longer be sure that students accepted early decision will attend (and something around 1/3 to 1/2 of Ivy League students are accepted via early decision now), they’ll be forced to put an even larger number of students on a wait list, and the uncertainty will trickle all the way down the system.

Although the author of this piece thinks otherwise, I feel this move would lead to the collapse of the early decision system. The only reason that schools hang on to this system is that it guarantees them 100% yield on the students they accept. When the system becomes no more reliable than the regular decision, they would do better selecting from a larger pool of applicants. Perhaps getting rid of Early Decision will be better for the incoming students. Going back to a single admissions period for all might allow kids to choose the college that is really right for them, rather than simply going to the school they happened to get in to via ED.