In mid-December, top schools will admit the first members of the Class of 2029 as students receive their much anticipated Early Action (EA) and Early Decision (ED) application results. Not only does this time period mark a significant point in students’ college admissions journeys, but it also has the potential to shed light on what to expect from this admissions cycle as a whole.
EA and ED application paths allow applicants to apply and receive their admissions decisions earlier than the regular decision option. Applying early often provides students a slight edge in the competitive process due to the boost that ED applicants lend to colleges’ matriculation rates. While EA/ED acceptance rates tend to be significantly higher than regular decision acceptance rates, the number of applicants, diversity of applicants’ backgrounds, and the institutional messaging around acceptances are strong indicators of what to expect when Regular Decision results are released next spring.
While we cannot know with certainty what this year’s admissions cycle will bring, the expected trends may surprise some applicants. Here are three things that students can likely anticipate as EA/ED results are announced in the coming weeks:
1. Fewer Schools Announcing Their Results
In November, Harvard announced a major change in its admissions practices: the university will no longer publicize admissions rates on the day that students are notified of their acceptances. Instead, this data will be released in the Fall of 2025, after the admissions cycle has concluded. Numerous other top schools that have implemented similar measures, including Princeton, UPenn, and Stanford. Cornell, too, announced a decision to withhold admissions data in 2020. These measures have been aimed at combatting these institutions’ reputations for exclusivity, as they seek to attract a broader and more diverse group of applicants. As Princeton Dean of Admissions Karen Richardson wrote in a 2022 op-ed for The Princetonian on the school’s decision to forego releasing admissions results: “neither prospective students nor the University benefit from the admission process being boiled down in headlines to a single statistic like the admission rate,” and “we do not want to discourage prospective students from applying to Princeton because of its selectivity.” This push for applicant diversity has only increased since last year’s admissions cycle, which was the first since the rollback of affirmative action.
Harvard’s announcement indicates that the trend of withholding data will likely continue. Although students can rest assured that they will receive their individual results on the release date, they should expect that many top schools on their list will remain silent about their overall admissions trends until a later date.
2. Emphasis on Diversity Metrics
The deferred release of quantitative data in the early admissions cycle will likely go hand-in-hand with an emphasis on qualitative data. As top schools seek to distance themselves from the reputation for elitism that accompanies single-digit acceptance rates, they also want to highlight their public commitment to building more diverse classes in terms of socioeconomic background, race, and geographic representation. Early admissions announcements will likely continue to showcase the proportion of admitted Pell Grant recipients, first generation college students, and students from rural areas. What remains to be seen is how colleges will write about racial data, which has been a part of demographic reporting in the past. While most schools withheld this data during the last cycle, the first since the repeal of affirmative action, it is unclear whether the racial makeup of the accepted class will appear in reported data.
3. Decreasing Admissions Rates at Second Tier Schools
As the Ivy League has entered a transitional phase in the last few admissions cycles amidst wide-ranging criticism, prestigious second-tier institutions have risen in popularity, filling a void caused by the plummeting Ivy League acceptance rates. Universities such as NYU, Vanderbilt, Rice, Emory, Duke, and Northwestern have become significantly more competitive over the last decade—a trend that is likely to continue in both the early and regular decision rounds of this admissions cycle. For instance, Vanderbilt’s regular decision acceptance rate shrunk to a mere 3.7% (less than half of what it was a decade ago) during the last admissions cycle; early admissions rates have also fallen significantly at these schools, as Duke saw a 12.9% ED admissions rate in the 2023–24 cycle, compared to 25% in 2013–14 (the school’s regular decision acceptance rate was 4.1% for the Class of 2028). A number of factors contribute to this trend—as these schools increase in desirability, more students apply for a small and relatively static number of spots, resulting in a larger applicant pool and smaller acceptance rate. In addition, the yield rates for many of these schools have increased, meaning that they must accept a smaller percentage of applicants with the knowledge that a larger proportion of those accepted will enroll.
EA/ED Release Dates for Top Schools
The following are the official early round decision release dates for top schools:
- Columbia University: Early Decision, Mid-December
- Cornell University: Early Decision, Mid-December
- Duke University: Early Decision, Mid-December
- Princeton University: Single Choice Early Action, Mid-December
- University of Pennsylvania: Early Decision, Mid-December
- Yale University: Single Choice Early Action, Mid-December
- Brown University: Early Decision, Mid-December
- Georgetown: Early Action, December 15th
- New York University: Early Decision, December 15th
- MIT: Early Action, Mid-December
- UChicago: Early Action & Early Decision, Mid-December
- UNC-Chapel Hill, Early Action, January 31st
Whether seniors awaiting their results or younger students tracking the trends at top schools, students and families can glean helpful information from the early admissions cycle and should therefore pay attention to the information that top institutions release. At the same time, the admissions process can be unpredictable and no one metric provides a totalizing image of the overall admissions cycle. As results are released in the coming weeks, keep in mind that a deferral or rejection isn’t the end of the road—many students find their best fits through Early Decision II or Regular Decision.
If you’re a younger student seeking to learn more about early application options, check out Command Education’s comprehensive guide!
Originally Published on Forbes.
