The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Early decision applications drop 8 percent

The number of early decision applications decreased for the third year in a row, admissions officials announced yesterday.

This year, 3,610 students applied early to Penn - an almost eight-percent drop from last year's 3,917 early applications.

As in years past, about 30 percent of this year's early decision applicants will be accepted, said Dean of Admissions Eric Furda. Those admitted will make up a projected 48 percent of the class of 2013, he said.

In 2004, Penn received 3,420 applications for its early decision program. Early applications peaked in 2005, when it jumped to 4,148, and has declined each year since then.

"We are definitely seeing something," Furda said in reference to the lower number of applications.

He cited Harvard and Princeton universities' decision to end their early application programs last year and the economic crisis as possible reasons for the decline.

Brown University - another school with a binding early decision program - saw a similar drop in early applications this year. According to The Brown Daily Herald, the university saw an about four-percent decrease in early applications.

But at Dartmouth, early decision applications are up about 10 percent this year, according to The New York Times.

Furda noted that the past three years have seen an increase in applications to non-binding early action programs.

The Yale Daily News reported that early applications at Yale University rose about 10 percent this year. At Stanford University, they rose 18 percent and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by 25 percent, according to The New York Times. All three schools have non-binding early action programs.

Furda wrote in an e-mail that as a result of recent layoffs and the collapse of the financial service industry, fewer students applied to Wharton than in past years. Only 29 percent of the total early decision applications applied to the school .

Fifty-seven percent of early decision applicants applied to the College, 12 percent to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and two percent to the School of Nursing.

While, as usual, almost half of this year's applicants hail from the Mid-Atlantic, the number of applicants from California dropped from 332 last year to 292 this year.

This number is "soft" compared to last year's, Furda said, particularly since the University had increased recruiting efforts in the state this year. Despite the drop, he said Penn will continue its strong California recruitment efforts due to the size and demographics of the state.

In addition, he said next year's recruitment will have an increased focus on the Southeast United States, from Texas to Florida.

International applications remained relatively stable, with 602 applicants compared to 605 last year.

The gender distribution also stayed fairly even with 46 percent female applicants, up from 45 percent in last year's pool.

This year's total, however, does not include the 220 applicants who applied to the University through QuestBridge, a separate application program for low-income students with which the University partnered for the first time this year.

This article was updated at 11:45 a.m. on Dec. 4 to clarify that early applications peaked in fall 2005, not 2006 as originally stated. Those students entered the University in 2006.

Related StoriesEarly Decision applications decrease 1.5 percent - NewsApplications for regular decision should rise - NewsEarly applications surge 21% - News

Comments (12)

Good and interesting article, thanks!

I have to agree with teh poster above... :/ looks like a lot of hot air to me.

Why aren't the 220 applications through QuestBridge not tallied to the total number of applications? Are they not for early admission?

Questbridge applicants are allowed to pick 8 schools to match with in ED, so that would skew the numbers. It is only if they match with Penn that they are a binding ED applicant. Not exactly the same thing.

Some other schools - apparently including Yale, Stanford and MIT - seem to tally the Questbridge applicants as early pool applicants. Certainly the Questbridge program has the same yield-boosting characteristics of EA and ED programs in that the applicant is "committed" to his or her "match" school. http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/26614

This is a bit distressing, but I suppose it's all part of stabilization within the new admissions environment. I find it very odd that Dartmouth's apps are going up, though. I though their popularity had recently waned. If the group of applicants is sufficiently talented, Penn can over-rely on them to build up a healthy yield and then under-admit for the RD round to keep their numbers solid. I doubt that they'll do this, though. If I were in charge, I would accept like 60% of the class ED and then decimate the regular applicants. We could break through to the 10% range with that type of strategy.

I disagree with Crag. Penn would be much better off if it dropped binding early decision and moved to an open early action plan. The schools with open early action (ie, MIT, up 25% for next year) and Stanford and Yale with a half-ass SCEA option (up 10-15% for next year) have enjoyed large increases in early applications; Penn, Dartmouth and Brown, with binding programs, have not, and receive far fewer early applications as a fraction of the total. Even if Penn lacks the confidence to follow Harvard and Princeton in dropping the early program (and receiving record numbers of "regular" applications) it should at least drop the binding aspect in order to increase the size of its early pool. The impact on the yield rate should not be all that bad, as Harvard, Princeton, Yals and Stanford have shown.

Wharton is dragging us down now..oh the irony..the horrific, delicious irony...

'09, I don't think shaving a few percentage points off the accept rate is as important as having a good, talented, and enthusiastic incoming class. Penn always relied on ED because it was an assurance that a large part of the student body really wants to be here. I think a binding policy has a healthy effect for the overall atmosphere for the school. Lets face it, Penn still lags behind Harvard, Yale and Princeton generally, and behind Columbia and Brown in terms of general appeal to high school students. Without ED, incoming students might not be quite as enthused about their school. People fret about selectivity a little too much. Penn shouldn't make decisions just to boost numbers - the administration should also assess what policies are qualitatively the best for the institution too. One other note, this early admissions cycle is just confusing - Penn had nearly a 10% drop, Chicago had a 15% drop, but Northwestern, Dartmouth, etc. had significant gains. Who knows what's going on?

Much as I love dear old Penn, it would lose in a contest with HYPS--not because it isn't as good, but because it doesn't have as much brand equity, and will probably take another couple decades of Rodin-esque management to get there.

To Parl: �? in other words, the Admissions Office is addicted to Early Decision as a yield-boosting device (ie identifying in advance admits who "really want to be here" and are willing to commit to the Faustian bargain.)

Comments are closed for this item.