Big Increase in Early Applications to GU

[sead43]

www.thehoya.com/news/111307/news1.cfm

Lots of interesting (and encouraging) stuff in there, but one sentence stood out to me:

Quote: "Deacon said he expects the number of regular decision applicants to rise from 16,000 to 18,000, due in part to national coverage of Georgetown’s men’s basketball team’s Final Four appearance in March."

[Jack]

jmassera said:

www.thehoya.com/news/111307/news1.cfm

Lots of interesting (and encouraging) stuff in there, but one sentence stood out to me:

Quote: "Deacon said he expects the number of regular decision applicants to rise from 16,000 to 18,000, due in part to national coverage of Georgetown’s men’s basketball team’s Final Four appearance in March."

Wouldn't read too much into that- he has been predicting a big jump in the pool from the moment Harvard announced the end of their early action program last September. I am sure the Hoya reporter asked him about that factor and he acknowledged it might have some impact, but athletic success does not drive applications among the best students.

[DFW HOYA]

Georgetown is one of a small number of schools which (thankfully) isn't interested in padding application numbers with the Common Application to justify their standing. Up at BC, they are approaching 30,000 apps a year, which, at $70 a pop, is a nice revenue source but 90% of them are going elsewehre anyway.

The number of "top students" applying is, by definition, a finite one. If Georgetown reaches the top students without the gimmicks, good for all of us.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

i found it sad, even though it's probably true that were getting so many application because other schools are dropping their EA/ED programs. Basically it's not because more people want to go to georgetown it's that they have fewier early actions, so as a result we get more students.

[vcjack]

hoyasincebirth said:

i found it sad, even though it's probably true that were getting so many application because other schools are dropping their EA/ED programs. Basically it's not because more people want to go to georgetown it's that they have fewier early actions, so as a result we get more students.

Or we push the acceptance rate down into the dirt. Its the numbers game; more people who apply means more people you get to turn down and that looks better to the pollsters

And DFW makes a good point that we are doing it even without resorting to the common app (have they finally moved away from paper-only though?). That report over the summer that we are the "hottest big city school" wasn't lying

[strummer8526]

hoyasincebirth said:

i found it sad, even though it's probably true that were getting so many application because other schools are dropping their EA/ED programs. Basically it's not because more people want to go to georgetown it's that they have fewier early actions, so as a result we get more students.

Personally, I have no problem with that bump, because I think Early Acceptance is a very fair and beneficial aspect of admissions. Sure, Early Decision forces prospective students' hands, and so it is unfair to those who need to wait out the process and see where financial aid comes from. But Early Acceptance just allows the most interested and organized students to get through the process earlier, get a response, and enjoy senior year. If they want to wait for financial aid from other early or even regular admissions, they can do that. So where's this big bias against the financial aid student that's such a problem with Early Acceptance? If we just happen to keep an admissions process that other schools discard for faulty reasons, then I'll take whatever benefit we get from it.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

I'm just saying i'd much rather read in the hoya that application numbers are up because more people are realizing what a good school it is and really wanting to come here. where as this article reads, we're getting more applicants, but only because "better" options aren't available anymore. That's all i'm saying.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

I agree I love EA. I was accepted here EA.

[DFW HOYA]

strummer85 said:

Sure, Early Decision forces prospective students' hands, and so it is unfair to those who need to wait out the process and see where financial aid comes from. But Early Acceptance just allows the most interested and organized students to get through the process earlier, get a response, and enjoy senior year. If they want to wait for financial aid from other early or even regular admissions, they can do that. So where's this big bias against the financial aid student that's such a problem with Early Acceptance?

The ED/EA system, in the minds of some, skews heavily to the upper class applicant and one who can "play the system". The middle class applicant (loosely defined with a HHI <$75K) looks away.

The admissions director at Harvard put it thusly: "Only the more sophisticated students and families look behind the label of 'early admission' and distinguish early action from binding early decision programs. Thus students from less advantaged backgrounds either fail to take advantage of early admission because they are less well-advised overall, or they consciously avoid our program on the mistaken assumption that they will be unable to compare financial aid packages. ...An early admission program that is less accessible to students from modest economic backgrounds operates at cross-purposes with our goal of finding and admitting the most talented students from across the economic spectrum."

Having interviewed students for a while, I'd say proportionately few of the early interviews are coming from what we might call true "middle class" backgrounds. These kids, every bit as entitled to a Georgetown education as the overassured prep school kids, tend to back away from schools with early programs, which skews the applicant pool even more.

www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/09.14/99-admissions.html

[strummer8526]

I guess my disagreement with Harvard then is over whether schools should drop such an admission program solely because people from certain backgrounds don't understand it. If EA actually did place financial limitations on applicants (as ED does), then I'd be all for getting rid of it. But the fact that at a certain economic level, you don't get the same quality of guidance counselor or because EA might look somehow uninviting to the less affluent applicant doesn't seem to me to be a sufficient reason to jettison a system that in reality has nothing to do with the applicant's finances.

Although not at all a correct analogy, it reminds me of when my elementary school stopped letting kids bring Airheads as a snack for lunch because "not everyone had them." Upon second reading, that's not even an analogy...just a story about something else that annoyed me.

[The Stig]

Speaking as somebody who got into Georgetown EA, I think EA is fantastic.

College admissions is a huge hassle - it takes up an enormous part of an applicant's life, and it is incredibly stressful. If you can get into a good school EA, a lot of that hassle is removed. If you get into a school EA, you can take all the schools that were below it on your list and toss their applications onto the fire, but you can still apply to schools that you liked more. It also doesn't tie you down in terms of financial aid packages.

For me EA was a godsend. Georgetown was my top choice, so as soon as I got accepted I was done with college applications. While all my friends were pulling their hair out over college apps second semester, I was sitting back and enjoying my last semester of high school.

[Jack]

The concerns articulated by the folks at Harvard about EA/ED providing greater advantage for the more privileged applicant are only valid if you also give those students a better chance of being admitted by virtue of their early application. Harvard's problem was not just that they were not getting enough first generation or lower middle class applicants at the EA round- it was also that they were admitting them at close to 3 times their regular admit rate.

Georgetown has long sought to address those concerns by admitting at the same rate early as the intended overall admit rate. Unexpected fluctuations in the size of the pool or the yield may have made for slight differences in the percentages, but never more than 2 or 3 percentage points. Whereas Harvard's EA pool appeared to confer an advantage on those who applied early, Georgetown's policy has long been about rewarding the very strongest applicants while deferring the more difficult decisions to regular decision, and allowing for maximum socioeconomic diversity.

Georgetown struggles to attract the middle class and working class applicant, but its EA policy is not the reason why. Harvard has made a large symbolic gesture and gained great publicity from those it was seeking to impress, but ultimately their policy shift has only put the system into greater chaos. This year especially, there is great uncertainty as students will be applying to more colleges than ever before, without the security of their Harvard/Princeton/UVA early acceptance. Colleges will be forced to be conservative with their admits, and will also be forced to count on their waitlists to fill in the class as they wait for the inevitable drop in yield from students who would not have been in their pool in the first place under the old system.

Had Harvard taken the less dramatic step of committing to admit students at the same rate early as overall, we would not be looking at this environment. Instead, the baby has gone out with the bathwater and Harvard is able to claim their allegiance with the common man while risking nothing in terms of attracting their typically stellar student body, due to their dominant market position which suggests that they will still yield their admits at over 80%.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

thestig said:

Speaking as somebody who got into Georgetown EA, I think EA is fantastic.

College admissions is a huge hassle - it takes up an enormous part of an applicant's life, and it is incredibly stressful. If you can get into a good school EA, a lot of that hassle is removed. If you get into a school EA, you can take all the schools that were below it on your list and toss their applications onto the fire, but you can still apply to schools that you liked more. It also doesn't tie you down in terms of financial aid packages.

For me EA was a godsend. Georgetown was my top choice, so as soon as I got accepted I was done with college applications. While all my friends were pulling their hair out over college apps second semester, I was sitting back and enjoying my last semester of high school.

I second that completely. EA let me really sit back and enjoy my second semester of high school.

[CAHoya07]

strummer85 said:

Although not at all a correct analogy, it reminds me of when my elementary school stopped letting kids bring Airheads as a snack for lunch because "not everyone had them." Upon second reading, that's not even an analogy...just a story about something else that annoyed me.

Hahahaha. ;D

[AustinHoya03]

stpetersburghoya said:

I second that completely. EA let me really sit back and enjoy my second semester of high school.

In Oklahoma, only two semesters are required to earn a diploma.

To earn a GED all you have to do is noodle a 30 pound catfish.

[DFW HOYA]

austinhoya03 said:

To earn a GED all you have to do is noodle a 30 pound catfish.

You realize, of course, that the Blue State folks have absolutely no idea what that is.