On December 14th, the class of 2008 nervously received the first round of news from colleges. One hundred-forty-two of the 240 students in the class applied early to college and some applied to more than one school. The total number of accepted applications was seventy-five.
According to Mr. Jacoby, Director of the College Counselling Office, the percentage of students who were accepted is a number protectively guarded. He revealed that this year’s figure was almost as strong as last year’s, which had been exceptional. Although not a majority, the percentage was more than 20%.
Popular schools for early application were Brown, Chicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, George Washing, Georgetown, Middlebury, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Tuffs, Tulane, Vermont, Westminster, Yale, Notre Dame, and Southern Methodist. Acceptance rates at each of these schools are confidential.
Jacoby, who presented a report to Headmaster Shanahan who passed it to the trustees, was worried both about the feelings of students who were not accepted, and about the news leaking to Deerfield and other peer schools.
More applications were deferred than denied; this means that the students can have another chance for acceptance during the round of regular admission. However on a national level there is a growing trend of denials among early applications. With the number of students applying to college at its largest ever, schools are more willing to deny.
Rebecca Sassoon ’08 was admitted to the Huntsman Program in International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in which students earn a BA in International Studies from the School or Arts and Sciences and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School. The program admits 40 students per grade from all over the world including Morocco, Venezuela, Peru, Britain, and France. Each student is required to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English. Since the SAT2 was not offered in Arabic, Rebecca’s language of choice, the school sent her a separate test. Rebecca conveyed her enthusiasm for the program and her positive experience with her college counsellor Ms. Atkinson from whom she received “constant support and encouragement and lack of negativity.”
In addition to the early applications, students submitted rolling and scholarship applications. Large state schools such as UCONN and University of Michigan accept applications as they get them. Students who submit earlier have a higher chance of being selected. At this point last year the number of students accepted by rolling application was 17; this year the figure has doubled to 33. “There have been people running around, feeling stress and pressure for lots of different reasons,” stated Jacoby.
The advantages of applying earlier are first, if you receive good news you do not have to fill out as many other applications; second, applying early lets that college know you are particularly interested; third, early application is an opportunity to connect via a special talent with the campus and be recognized for it; and last, part of being a good applicant to college is coming across as organized and passionate, the type of person who would finish applications early.
One of the major disadvantages to applying early is that students have to decide by November 1st which school they would attend months before May 1st, the national day when students hear news for regular admission. This time difference cuts down on the students’ abilities to develop and change interests of study. Early decision applications are binding. However, they increase the student’s chances for acceptance, a dilemma Jacoby described as the “reality versus the ideal.” A burgeoning number of students are applying to schools that offer the non-binding early action option.
A popular early action school was Yale University. Lauren Provini ’08, was greeted with a Bulldog and a cappella music when she clicked her way to acceptance online. She worked at the Yale medical school over the summer for her science research program and is familiar with the downtown New Haven area. She plans to major in the cellular, molecular, and developmental field of biology and is also interested in studying abroad in Spain as well as performing in some of the theatre and a cappella groups. She loved the support in the community and school spirit in multiple aspects of college life. “The feeling you get,” she commented, “is indicative of the atmosphere of the school.” Lauren is also a finalist for the Moorhead Scholarship at UNC Chapel Hill, and is waiting to decide on which school she will attend until after she spends a weekend at UNC in March, when she will be interviewed again and notified of UNC’s decision.
Many students like to keep their options open. Emily McLeod, who was deferred from a binding application to her first choice school has rethought the process and feels that it will be good to have choices.
Changes have been made this year amongst colleges with regard to the early admission program. Harvard and Princeton universities removed all early programs. More students decided to apply early action, increasing percentages of applications at early action schools such as Boston College and the University of Chicago by astounding rates such as 14% and 45% respectively. These steep figures represent the change over just one year.
Amidst the rising applicant rates, Charlotte McCurdy ’08 was admitted early action into Yale where her father graduated. Although her major remains undecided, she is interested in philosophy, mathematics and literature. “I think that the intellectual culture as a product of the kind of students that Yale attracts is really appealing,” she said. Charlotte was also drawn in by the “incredible professors at all of these schools in this upper stratosphere of education.”
After students are admitted early action, Choate limits other applications to a maximum of two schools. Charlotte has chosen Stanford and Harvard and has yet to decide which school is her favourite. Other than restricting the number of schools to which she could apply after acceptance, the college office left Charlotte with much independence throughout the process, something she described as both empowering and scary. Given the great number of students with high adrenaline levels, Charlotte feels the office is doing “heroic work.”
Students may also want to wait to apply early if they are improving and would benefit if the colleges saw more grades. If a special talent such as a capstone program or directed study is growing, students might want to wait to present it to the colleges. If a student will become upset with a rejection or deferral, he or she should wait 4 months until regular admission, when any bad news would be accompanied with good news from other schools. Jacoby feels it takes courage to have faith in the group of schools selected for regular admission after hearing negatively from one school and to follow the calculated plan.
For some students applying early to their school would not alter their acceptance chances. For Miyako Wantanabe, whose first choice over the summer was Georgetown and now is tied with Brown, applying early would not increase any likelihood of acceptance because Georgetown early acceptance rates were only 0.1% higher than the regular admission rates. Miya decided to enjoy her summer cooking, travelling, and shadowing doctors in hospitals rather than work on her apps, all nine of which are now submitted in time for regular admission.
Students like Aubrey Sanders, thought it wise to hold off on a decision. “I like lots of my schools equally there’s no one that really stands out above all the others, so I thought that I’d do all regular decision and then I would make my choice based on where I was accepted.”
Other application decisions included the rolling application and Early Admission II, which allows students to go through the early decision process a month later. Some students applied early action to more than one school if the schools they were applying were early action unlimited. Choate limits these students to three early action schools, but most do not apply to more than two. Cait Colacchio ’08 applied to her first choice school and her first choice safety. She was rejected from the former and admitted to the latter. “It’s a really good feeling to be in college to know that there is somewhere you can go next year,” she said. “Apply to your safeties early.”
Two years ago the college office implemented a new program to work with students individually and in small groups, adding counsellors to provide a larger counsellor to student ratio and inform students to write better applications and render better results.
This is concurrent with the proliferating number of students across the nation and as a result the fierce increase in competition. The process does not work perfectly; many students made reasonable early application decisions and were not accepted. “I think the school should be very pleased with how it’s going so far, and yet there’s plenty of students who are facing more waiting and more worries,” said Jacoby.
