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When University President Judith Rodin molds back into her College Hall chair after a globally tumultuous 2001, she must re-examine an academic uproar: the proposed abolition of early decision. After Yale University's president announced last month that he wants to end the policy and have every Ivy League school level the playing field with him, Rodin told The New York Times, "It is a legitimate issue, and a complicated one. It is a discussion we ought to engage in because it has reached the public agenda." She's still a fan of the practice, but promises to do a retake this semester.

Rodin should scrutinize the data, of course, but I think studies have shown that early decision is a bad decision. Early decision -- which has seen its numbers jump this year, across the Ivies -- won popularity by admitting prefrosh early in December, after they apply -- exclusively -- in November. Excluding the criticism that early decision increases some students' chances for admission, which is a highly contentious assertion in itself, the process is flawed.

And you know what? I'm one of the beneficiaries of early decision, I think. I got into my first choice school and still love Penn as much as I did my sophomore year of high school, when I skipped around Locust Walk's Franklin statue singing "Ben On a Bench and Me!" I cried opening my early acceptance letter. Sporting my little sister's Penn long-sleeve t-shirt, because I'd refused to purchase anything from any university until admitted, I lived it up the next day and every day after senior year.

But, in hindsight, I can't say I'm sure I made the right decision. Maybe I would have been better off at Haverford, Columbia or the University of Maryland. Psychology, my major, teaches that late adolescence is when we form our identities (can't say I haven't retained anything from Penn). It's when we learn how to make big life decisions, not when we make them (that would be the senior year job search). What's the use of enticing individuals, who are essentially kids, to choose a college at least six months earlier than they are ready?

Yet, more and more, attending a competitive college means teens applying early. When I go back home, it's stressful to watch these teenagers stress.

There are two advantages to early decision and at least two major disadvantages. I'll start with what's alluring. The process hands high schoolers a largely carefree senior year and guarantees admissions officers a third or more of their freshman class by Christmas. Hard-working seniors breathe a sigh of relief, while their slacker friends await April 1 or 15 in agony. Admissions officers exhale on the same breath.

Now, here's why I, a satisfied early decision applicant, am a bit skeptical. The process pressures high school students to decide their futures months in advance of when that decision is appropriate. There's extensive maturation between early fall and January, when regular decision applications are due. Although there are a few directed, focused children who know what they want as early as the wonder years, I'd argue that the majority are needlessly limiting themselves.

In addition, the system handicaps the less well-off, who don't have access to costly college advisors to guide their decisions. The Yale's Undergraduate Admissions dean contends that early programs attract students from higher economic brackets, and researchers from Harvard's Kennedy School have found that most private school students, but only half of public school students, understand the system. So long as early decision exists, many private school students are pigeonholed, and many public school students are left in the dark.

I agree with Yale's President, Richard Levin, who said in a New York Times articles that early decision "pushes the pressure of thinking about college back into junior year of high school, and the only one who benefits is the admissions officers." The rest of the Ivy League should follow his lead. High school is full of enough peer and academic pressure. Why push these young people by promoting fast forward thinking?

Rodin, when you're done digesting holiday leftovers and are back into the swing of things, please take a moment to swallow what early decision is doing to your future students -- and those who, regrettably, will not be, because of early decision.

Aliya Sternstein is a senior Psychology major from Potomac, Md.

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