By Susan Alaimo, Contributor
Since numbers don’t lie, students with dreams of attending one of the eight prestigious Ivy League colleges/universities should seriously consider applying early. Five of these schools, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and The University of Pennsylvania, offer an “Early Decision” plan whereby applicants sign a binding agreement that they will attend if admitted. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale universities offer a less restrictive form of early application known as “Single Choice Early Action,” allowing students to also submit applications to other schools as long as none of their other applications are early action or early decision., The numbers tell the story as to why students with their heart set on attending a particular Ivy League school should seriously consider filing an early application which typically has a November 1st deadline date. All eight of these elite institutions fill between 43 percent (Cornell) and 64 percent (Yale) of their incoming class with Early Decision or Single Choice Early Action applicants., Statistics from the universities’ graduating Classes of 2020 and 2021 indicate that the odds of getting accepted by one of these top schools increase dramatically when students sign the binding early application agreement., Brown University accepted 22 percent of early applicants but only 8 percent of regular applicants. Columbia University accepted 19 percent of early applicants and 5 percent of regular applicants. The gap was not quite as extreme at Cornell University where 26 percent of early applicants were accepted, compared to 13 percent of regular applicants. But the gap was severe at Harvard University where 14 percent of early applicants were accepted compared to only 3 percent of regular applicants., The acceptance numbers at Princeton University were 15 percent early applicants to 5 percent for regular applicants. Dartmouth accepted 28 percent of early and 9 percent of regular applicants. Yale accepted 17 percent of early and 4 percent of regular applicants, and The University of Pennsylvania accepted 22 percent of early and 7 percent of regular applicants., Why is this the scenario, year after year? The Ivy League schools want to maintain their prestigious reputations that are based, in part, on their “yield” – the number of accepted students who enroll at the institution. A great strategy for maintaining a high yield is to fill a large portion of the incoming class with students who, if accepted, will (almost) definitely attend!, Susan Alaimo is the founder and director of SAT Smart in Hillsborough that has been offering PSAT, SAT, and ACT preparation courses, as well as private tutoring by IVY-League educated instructors, for more than 20 years. Visit www.SATsmart.com.
