Why college early admissions make affirmative action so crucial

This week, high school seniors across the nation are putting the finishing touches on their college essays, filling in the final sections of their college applications and scrolling through photos of what they hope will be their future campus home.

But unbeknownst to these students, a growing number of selective colleges have largely shut their doors to applicants who follow the traditional college application timeline, through their overuse of the “Early Decision” program. As the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to bar the consideration of race in admission decisions, colleges’ increased reliance on Early Decision admissions to fill their freshman classes has worrying implications for economic and racial diversity on campus.

Under the traditional college application timeline, students apply to colleges mostly in December or early January, and they receive acceptance letters and financial aid offers by mid-April. They then have until May 1 (known as “Decision Day”) to compare financial aid packages and make their decision before committing to a school.

Early Decision plans allow students to apply early (usually in November) to their first-choice college and receive an admission decision much sooner (usually in December).

Early Decision admissions are often lumped in with a similarly titled program known as Early Action, but while both feature earlier application deadlines and admission decisions, Early Decision is a binding program: students can only apply Early Decision to one school, and agree that if accepted, they will attend that school.

This practice began as a niche program offered by a few colleges and representing only a small percentage of seats at those schools. But over the past 30 years, it has become a significant part of the college admissions landscape. While just over 100 schools had early decision plans in the 1990s, that number is now greater than 450.

While most colleges do not release data that allows for comparisons of their students who are admitted through Early Decision versus Regular Admission programs, it’s hard to imagine that the growth in Early Decision is not harming economic and racial diversity on campus.

Under the traditional college admission timeline, students can compare their financial aid packages and either choose the most affordable option or consider the full financial picture along with other priorities.

But under Early Decision, students must commit to attending a school if accepted, with no ability to compare financial aid offers. As a result, students who apply for Early Decision tend to come predominantly from wealthier families who will not receive significant need-based financial aid. A recent analysis shows that low-income students are half as likely to apply early, while another study indicates that the early decision pool is more than three times as white as the regular decision applicant pool.

To be clear: This appears to be big part of the reason colleges like Early Decision. It allows them to lock in students with the ability to pay high tuition rates (and those whose families may be more likely to donate to schools’ endowments and booster programs) early in the admission process.

Dozens of selective colleges and universities, including Duke, Davidson, Emory, Northwestern, Swarthmore and Tufts, have filled close to half of their freshman spots through early decision in recent years. Among the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 2023 freshman, 53 percent were from its early decision applicant pool.

When so many students are admitted before the regular admission cycle begins, the result is a miniscule admissions rate for students who follow the traditional schedule. At Duke last year, the percentage of applicants who were offered admission was 17.6 percent for early applicants, but plummeted to just 4.3 percent during the regular admissions cycle. The growth in Early Decision programs is closing the door to many colleges before low-income students even have the chance to get in line.

That’s all the more reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve affirmative action in college admissions. At a time when enrollment management practices are threatening the ability of low-income students, students of color and first-generation students to gain admission to selective colleges, will the court really eliminate one of the main tools colleges use to build a diverse student body? If they do, selective colleges will move further toward only educating the children of wealthy families, deepening the economic and racial divides facing our nation.

Robert Hildreth is the founder of the Hildreth Institute, a non-profit research and policy center dedicated to restoring the promise of higher education as an engine of upward mobility for all. He is a former International Monetary Fund economist whose professional work involved restructuring South American debt and marketing sovereign debt loans.