The furor over early action is growing as schools send out their various Distinguished Applicant, Presidential Scholar, Short App…whatever they call it to entice you to apply early…then they “bagged” an application all good for their numbers. In most cases unless your grades and SAT’s are within their ranges they have no reason to accept you early…they can wait and see what comes regular. For this reason I would recommend that  students apply  to only one Early Action school that you have picked, not that picked you. Don’t get caught up in the marketing work by the schools to just generate nos. of applications. Early action is not a short-cut though they try to make you believe it is….and it often leads to less-polished applications

The number of graduating high school students peaked at 3.3 million in 2009 while at the same time the recession made it more difficult for families to afford colleges, according to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors most recent annual report. Twenty-nine percent of colleges report a drop in applications in 2009. The 2010 application numbers will be necessary to determine if the trend of declining numbers of applications was short-term or will continue to grow. In response for the 2010 application season, more colleges are turning back to early action/decision to guarantee freshmen enrollment targets are met.

In a recent Washington Post (see Voices.WashingtonPost.com), the writer purports to provide a list of 10 schools that students MUST apply early to.
1 Lehigh University (PA)
2 Johns Hopkins University (MD)
3 College of William and Mary (VA)
4 Cornell University (NY)
5 University of Notre Dame (IN)
6 Brandeis University (MA)
7 Duke University (NC)
8 Boston College
9 University of Pennsylvania
10 University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
I have not included the numbers as published because in my experience they are not helpful because:
1. If a student is applying Early Decision, their chances will be improved at any school. Your student says, “School you own me, I will think and research no more.”
2. If a student is applying Early Action, their chances may be improved a bit at any school. Your student says,  “I like your school better than some of the other schools I am applying to but reserve the right to change that opinion after they all make offers to me.”
LESSON: If Early Action/ Early Decision numbers are not separated out they cannot be relied on to predict acceptance chances.

Inside Higher Education ( Scott Jaschik) summarizes a study to be released today by the National Association of College Admission Counselors researching:
Factors of ‘Considerable Importance’ in Transfer Admissions Decisions
The first percentage is Public Universities, the second Private:
GPA at postsecondary institutions 95.2% \ 90.8%
Grade-point average in high school 3.7%  \14.5%
Grades in transferable courses 72.5% \ 53.8%
Scores on standardized tests 3.8% \ 8.5%
Quality of high school 0.0% \ 3.8%
Quality post-secondary institution 7.4  \13.2
Articulation with prior institution 19.5% \ 9.9%
Essay or writing sample 6.1%  \ 25.5%
Recommendations 0.0% \ 24.6%
Ability to pay 0.0% \  3.4%
Race/ethnicity 2.4% \  2.6%
Interview 0.0% \ 11.1%
I read this data to confirm that public institutions look at the transfer applicant’s grades in post-secondary institution and whether he/she has taken appropriate classes (articulation). For public universities high school is a thing of the past as are SAT scores.
HOWEVER, private schools treat the transfer application almost identically to that of freshmen applications. GPA post-secondary and high school is important as are essays, recommendations and INTERVIEWS. Notice also that private schools are not as worried about the specific classes an applicant took in post-secondary school.
This may seem inconsistent but in truth I believe it gives different students with different profiles each a place to apply and be accepted.

It’s “simple”: More students are applying to Ivy League schools who have not added capacity so the percentage of those accepted is dropping.
But looking beyond the “simple” is the fact that Ivy League schools and other tier one schools with financial aid policies that promise to pay 100% of need are ALL attracting more applications. The current recession has made financial aid a key factor in selecting schools for parents at all economic levels. And if one is fortunate enough to not have to worry about financial aid, then be aware that more generous financial aid policies will make a college/university more competitive than a comparable college/university with less generous financial aid policy.
ACCEPTANCE RATES AT SOME TOP U.S. COLLEGES
Acceptance rates at some top U.S. colleges for the class of 2014:
School Applied Accepted Rate
Harvard 30,489 2,110 6.9%
Stanford 32,022 2,300 7.2%
Yale 25,869 1,940 7.5%
Princeton 26,247 2,148 8.2%
Columbia 26,178 2,397 9.2%
Brown 30,136 2,804 9.3%
MIT 16,632 1,611 9.7%
Dartmouth 18,778 2,165 11.5%
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research

As reported by Keith Darce of the Union-Tribune, of the 3,534 first-year students expected to start in the fall, 1,484 will come from high schools south of state Route 56 in San Diego County and those in Imperial County, SDSU officials said yesterday.
An additional 1,740 applicants from the service area would have been accepted under the old admissions system, which allowed such applicants to qualify with lower test scores and grade point averages.
The policy change, announced in September, is part of a larger effort to reduce fall enrollment by 2,750 students in the wake of major state budget cuts. SDSU administrators have said they want to emphasize academic quality and maximize admissions flexibility while still maintaining a healthy geographic mix.
Overall, the university’s student population will fall to 28,986 this year, its lowest level since 1995 and down from 31,579 in fall 2009.
The new class has an average high school GPA of 3.78 and an average SAT score of 1148. That compares with a 3.62 GPA and a 1110 SAT score for last fall’s freshman class.

In USA Today [ www.usatoday.com/news/education ] , David Moltz reports: ” Community college transfer students are no longer being courted only by the usual suspects. More private institutions, of every ilk, are aggressively recruiting students from two-year colleges, hoping to bolster and diversify their enrollments and capitalize on the belt-tightening of regional public universities.”
This is the best news in months for the beleaguered community college students who can no longer transfer in the winter term, who can no longer get classes…who can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Look to private schools and apply for financial aid.