Early Decision II
Wonderful response this past week, thank you. Colleagues, admissions personnel, and forensic psychologists wrote to agree. Applying Early Decision doesn't convey Early Decision credentials on a student any more than sleeping in a garage turns a golden retriever into a car.
An associate pointed out that coaches at highly competitive schools use Early Decision to attract athletes. (I know, I know, Division III colleges aren't allowed to give athletic scholarships. All those athletes are just coincidentally getting tuition discounts--er, ahem, of course I meant "merit scholarships.") Once admitted, many first-year athletes don't hang around to participate on teams as sophomores. So coaches load up on Early Decision athletes, making the Early Decision statistic even more suspect. If Bowdoin admits 13% of the Early Decision applicants but half of those applicants are recruited athletes, then the Early Decision admit rate looks remarkably similar to the 6% Regular Decision number.
I have one more way of explaining why applying Early Decision doesn't necessarily improve a student's chances of being admitted to a highly competitive institution. Consider the following reasoning of why a teacher wants to spend time in the lobby of an office building where lots of hedge fund managers work.
Hedge fund managers make a lot of money, the teacher says. A lot more money than teachers. A whole lot more. So the teacher starts hanging out in the lobby of the building where the hedge fund managers work. Because in the town where the teacher lives, only one percent of his neighbors are hedge fund managers. But in the lobby of that building in Midtown Manhattan, 50% of the folks are hedge fund managers. So the teacher figured it was now 50 times more likely that his salary would be similar to that of a hedge fund manager rather than that of a teacher.
Can you see the flaw in this argument? Being in the same lobby with other hedge fund managers does not increase the salary of my teacher friend. He’s still a teacher. His teacher income does not increase no matter how much time he spends in the lobby with the hedge fund managers.
Stated another way, I can jump into the pool at the Olympics--assuming I can get past security--but I still swim like a stone. I will not end up on the podium. Even though the majority of the other swimmers can cover 1500 meters in under 15 minutes, it will still take me the better part of the afternoon to swim that far. Being in the same pool metaphorically or literally doesn't help me swim faster.
Last example: Consider Lee, a college senior with a C average and a 950 SAT. Lee's senior year classes include Functional Math, English 12, Study Hall, Office Aid, and a science course, "Animals that will Eat You." Lee has never read a book that wasn't assigned or most of the ones that were. Lee's admissions essay is about volunteer work that they never got around to doing. Absent Lee being 6' 11" and a deadly three-point shooter, Lee won't be admitted Regular Decision.
But Lee won't be admitted Early Decision either.
The take-aways for loving parents are clear: the appearance of ability is not nearly as important as the reality. Focus on what your kids know, not just what grades appear on their transcript; help them to express themselves coherently when they speak or write; communicate that what is in their heads is more meaningful than where they are admitted to college.
