Ethics and Early Decision
The college admission process can produce some interesting personal dilemmas. One such quandary was brought to my attention in a phone call last week from a young man who was trying to sort out an Early Decision opportunity. A competitive athlete, he had been approached by a recruiting coach from an NCAA Divison III (non-scholarship) school with the suggestion that he convert his application for admission from Regular Decision to Early Decision (ED). Moreover, the coach had assured the young man that if his application for financial aid did not produce the desired assistance from this institution, he would not be held to his commitment to enroll if accepted ED.
The caller was understandably excited and confused by this development. While he liked the school very much, he couldn’t say for sure that it was his first choice. This is largely due to his need for financial aid. In fact, the uncertainty of his financial aid situation had led him to actively consider other schools as well. Moreover, he also understood the underlying premise of the unconditional commitment to enroll if accepted that is assumed of ED candidates. As a result, he was skeptical of the pitch he had been given by this coach.
My advice to the young man was simple: “If you need to make sure you get the best financial aid possible and there is a chance other schools might admit you and give you better offers, then don’t give up your right to see those offers by converting your application to ED at one school. The coach is behaving unethically by making this suggestion. Don’t compound the problem by heading down that road with him.” I’m not sure I told this young man anything he didn’t already suspect to be true, but our chat gave him the confidence to respond to the coach’s overtures.
That said, as a college applicant you need to be especially vigilant about the ethics of the process. The desire to get into favored schools should never put you in a place where you compromise your integrity or the rules governing the process. Unfortunately, the coach in question was crossing the ethical “line” by asking the applicant to consider an Early Decision application when he knew the young man could only do so conditionally due to his financial situation. The good news is the young man had the presence of mind to step back and assess the situation objectively.
Now, in case you’re checking the calendar and wondering how this conversation between the coach and the applicant could be taking place as the “round two” deadlines for ED have passed at most schools, welcome to the world of college admission in 2008! These are the days when selective colleges do what they can to pump up their yields on offers of admission while looking for opportunities to reduce the overall number of students they need to admit and, hence, become more selective. Add to the mix the dynamics of athletic recruitment–even at the NCAA Division III non-scholarship level–and the opportunity for late-season Early Decision conversations emerges.
A few other observations are worth noting here. One, the NCAA forbids Division III athletic recruiters from having any conversation about family finances with the financial aid officers at their respective institutions. In short, an athlete’s potential involvement in an NCAA Division III program may NOT have any bearing on the disposition of his/her financial aid status. Two, each institution employs slightly different criterion in assessing a student’s academic strength within the context of its financial aid program. It is not only possible that a recruit’s financial “need” could be read differently from one school to the next, the strength of his academic credential may also result in differences in the composition of the financial aid awards he receives. Whereas a student athlete may qualify for special consideration academically at one school, at others he may not.
Finally, the late season ED phenomenon is not limited to recruited athletes. Admission officers at many selective schools will keep the application “door” open past formal deadlines as they troll for high-yielding ED conversions well into February of the admission process. Should you be confronted with such an opportunity, just remember-the rules remain the same. If you convert your application to ED, you are making an unconditional commitment to enroll if accepted.
Inside the Numbers
A little background might prove useful in establishing the grounds for the late ED question in the first place, so let’s take a look inside the numbers and think: enrollment management. Colleges that want to improve their yields and become more selective can simply turn to their Early Decision programs for easy solutions. Whereas admission officers at most schools must admit 4-5 Regular Decision applicants in order to enroll one, ED programs allow them the efficiency of “admitting one applicant to get one.” For every additional ED enrollment that can be counted, then, 4-5 fewer students need to be admitted in the Regular Decision process to fill that same place in the class.
Consider the impact of such a strategy on a larger scale. A college or university that can attract 50 more ED enrollments over the previous year reduces by as many as 250 Regular Decision students it would otherwise need to admit to fill those places in the class. As a result, the more ED enrollments a school can stockpile, the more selective it becomes.
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