Don’t Fall into the Trap of Early Decision
Part 2 of a series on reforming college admissions and strategies for a successful college search
Very few schemes in the world are as successful at separating people from their money as Early Decision in college admissions.
The most selective colleges use the process to lure parents and students. If they apply early, usually by November 1, a student has a much better chance of being admitted. Getting into a fabled nearly-unobtainable college becomes an obsession. But it is an obsession with a catch: if you get accepted at the college where you apply Early Decision, you must go there. (There are circumstances in which you can opt out because of financial issues, but if you are worried you can’t afford a college, you shouldn’t be applying Early Decision in the first place.)
It can be confusing because the terminology is very similar, but there is a big difference between Early Decision (ED) and Early Admission (EA). EA allows an applicant to get early word on whether they have been admitted to a college, often by Christmas, but the student is not obligated to attend.
I wouldn’t let either of my children apply Early Decision. Here’s why:
- There is no such thing as only one college being right for a student. Your child can have a great experience at many colleges and universities, and you are artificially precluding yourself from that realization if you think only one college is the answer.
- I refuse to surrender my financial flexibility. In fact, I can’t.
- I reject the idea of handing all the leverage in the admissions process to the college. My children are smart and talented. Colleges should want them, and I want to see how much.
I am morally opposed to Early Decision in concept. I don’t think it is right for already wealthy colleges to make the college admissions process even more torturous. But I also don’t understand why parents go along with it. Why would someone willingly pay twice the price of another student when they don’t have to? In what other situation would you do that?
I am not suggesting that every student who applies Early Decision pays the full sticker price, but, disproportionately, they do. Or they pay, on average a lot closer to the sticker price than students who applied in Regular Decision.
Nevertheless, colleges are getting away with it. Selective colleges cunningly make Early Decision sound like it might be the only chance an applicant has to gain admittance. Regular decision is a crapshoot, they tell you; Early Decision is like slipping a Benjamin to the bouncer.
Colleges are filling more seats from Early Decision applicants.
In fact, the data shows that acceptance rates are indeed much higher for Early Decision applicants that those who apply regular decision. Colleges increasingly are taking more and more students from the Early Decision applicant pool. Take Lehigh University, for example. For its class of 2026, 1,511 students enrolled, and more than half of them (794) were admitted through Early Decision. Overall, Lehigh had an acceptance rate of 37 percent in the fall of 2022, but in the Early Decision round, the acceptance rate was 66 percent.
Another example: Tulane University. Tulane boasted an 11.5 percent acceptance rate overall for the class that entered in fall 2022. But Early Decision is the side door that gets you backstage. Once you have agreed to play by the university’s rules, Tulane isn’t so selective at all. Among Early Decision applicants, more than two-thirds were admitted. Those students admitted in Early Decision ultimately made up almost 70 percent of the incoming class.
Early decision makes already-wealthy colleges even richer.
Why are universities doing this when they don’t have to? Because everything about it plays to the college’s favor.
First of all, colleges are playing on applicants’ anxieties. Let’s face it: admission to the most selective colleges is a black box. No one ever really knows why one student got in and another didn’t, so some applicants are willing to use whatever possible advantage they can get.
Second, it gives colleges more ways to shape their classes. Since they know that pretty much every student they accept in Early Decision will attend, they know early exactly who and what they are getting. Locking in desirable applicants through Early Decision potentially lets a college increase its rankings and makes it even more desirable.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Early Decision allows colleges to charge more. Universities like Tulane know that only the children of the wealthy will apply because no one else can afford to run the risk of having to pay the full cost of attendance, which was $80,190 in tuition, required fees, and room and board for 2022–23. Tulane is doing a very good job of tapping into wealthy families, or maybe families who are just spending too much: of the 1,843 students who enrolled at Tulane in fall 2022, only 541 students were awarded any need-based financial aid. Another 612 students were awarded non-need-based financial aid or an athletic scholarship. That means that about 37 percent of the incoming class paid the full sticker price. A total of 105 students took out private loans that averaged $55,182.
$55,000 a year in loans for a bachelor’s degree? Believe it.
Tulane is a fine university, but is it worth it to borrow $55,182 for one year to attend? Tulane has created artificial scarcity and panicked parents into paying far more than they reasonably should, all for the “privilege” of attending.
Tulane is not alone, by any means. Take Wesleyan University. Wesleyan tries hard to encourage diversity: almost half of its incoming class is non-white, and the college meets the full financial need of all students. Wesleyan also tries to do the right thing in admissions: in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in June striking down race-conscious affirmative action, Wesleyan was one of the first universities to announce it would no longer consider legacy status in admissions decisions.
I applaud that stance. But Wesleyan can afford to take it because it so successful at getting wealthy students to attend: it admitted 57 percent of its incoming fall 2022 class through Early Decision. Like at Tulane and Lehigh, those Early Decision applicants had a far greater chance of being admitted (40 percent) than all applicants (14.4 percent). But a staggering 56 percent of students accepted into Wesleyan did not even apply for need-based financial aid. The majority of students, therefore, are willing to use savings and take out loans to pay the annual tuition, fees and room and board that totaled $86,350.
This, folks, is insane. Let me remind you of the bigger picture in college financial aid. The authoritative tuition discounting survey from the National Association of College and University Business Officers finds that more than 90 percent of incoming college undergraduates get at least some financial aid from their college. On average, incoming freshmen got a 56 percent discount off the sticker price.
The College Board finds that the net price of college is decreasing, when adjusted for inflation, not increasing. And yet, the popularity of Early Decision continues to grow.
The ROI is not better at selective colleges
There is no financial evidence to support the logic of paying the full sticker price at any college. A degree from these highly selective colleges is not worth more in the job market. The 40-year average value of a degree from Wesleyan ($1,407,000) is less than that of nearby non-selective institutions such as Quinnipiac University ($1,523,000) and Sacred Heart University ($1,428,000). The return on investment (ROI) of a Wesleyan education is even less than the much less-expensive University of Connecticut ($1,527,000). The 40-year value of going to Tulane ($1,109,000) is less than that of the nearby inexpensive and non-selective Louisiana State University ($1,211,000).
And yet, thousands of parents and students are convinced that they must pay whatever it takes to get into about 100 selective colleges in this country.
There are better ways: my son, Reid, didn’t apply Early Decision and got into some of the top colleges and universities in the country, and was offered financial aid at every one. This is despite the fact that he comes from a household comfortably in the top 10 percent of the income distribution.
Seven of the colleges where he got accepted also have Early Decision, but he ignored the odds and applied either Early Action or Regular Decision. As I wrote in the first post in this series, he didn’t get emotionally invested in any single college. He was ready to be be turned down, and willing to walk away if the finances were not right.
This attitude about the whole process is key: you don’t have to play the colleges’ game by their terms and you shouldn’t. It is just throwing money away.
Early Action is a good option
On the other hand, I endorse Early Action. With EA, there is no commitment to attend if accepted. You maintain your financial options, and we reasoned that it would take a lot of stress out of the process if Reid had at least one Early Action acceptance in his back pocket if other colleges rejected him. Reid applied Early Action at all four colleges that offered it. (He also applied early to the University of Toronto, which has a “recommended early application date,” but it is not the same as Early Action in the US.)
Applying Early Action shows colleges that you are sincerely interested. You also get some of the applications out of the way early, usually by mid-November, so you can breathe a little before the next round of applications in December and January.
These colleges that have Early Action want to make a good impression on the students they accept because they expect applicants are applying to other colleges, too. In fact, we found that some of the colleges where he applied Early Action offered some of the best financial aid offers.
Reid sat out of Early Decision, and still got the thrill of getting college acceptances, and large scholarship offers, by Christmas. Those were the nicest gifts any of us received.
My next post will be for colleges. They need to be more disciplined and differentiated in their recruitment marketing, and pay closer attention to applicants who have shown sincere interest.
