Early decision has traditionally been one of the central tenets of many college admissions programs, empowering universities to attract and enroll the students most eager to attend.
In recent years, however, the process of early decision has become controversial for a number of reasons. One such reason relates to the "binding agreement" element of the early decision process. When students apply to a school via early decision, they are contractually obligated to attend if accepted.
There are, however, exceptions to this rule, the most notable being that when early decision accepted students receive insufficient financial aid packages, it is generally possible for them to back out of their agreements.
William Conley, interim director of financial aid and dean of enrollment and academic services, commented on the issue. "It's not a common problem among Hopkins early decision students," he said. "We do say that if financial circumstances prevent [a student from following through on] an early decision binding commitment, we will allow the student to change over to regular admissions."
According to Conley, if an early decision admitted student and family insist that they cannot meet the terms of the financial aid package they receive, the student can choose to shift his or her application over to the regular admissions pool. This means that their entire application will be re-evaluated and given a new decision.
Conley also said that Hopkins does not have a major problem with broken early decision agreements because of the number of early decision students who need financial aid. "Last year about 43 percent of early decision students received financial aid, slightly higher than regular. That's why it doesn't seem to happen too frequently."
According to John Latting, director of Undergraduate Admissions at Hopkins, thus far, the Hopkins admissions office has not had a problem with students who simply decide, once accepted early decision, that they no longer want to attend the school.
"That's a really infrequent thing to happen, so it hasn't risen to the level of a problem for us; we don't feel the need to be really aggressive with those people because they're so rare," Latting said.
In past years, Hopkins has accepted up to 30 percent of its freshman class through the early decision program, and the size of the early decision pool has been steadily increasing.
The early decision pool for the freshman class of 2008 consisted this year of 1055 applicants, up from 997 applicants last year and more than double the size of the early decision pool in 2001, a mere 485.
Despite rising numbers, the retention rate of early decision accepted students has remained consistently high, generally around 97-98 percent.
Few students attempt to break their binding agreements, especially for reasons beyond the financial realm.
"To say that [the early decision agreement] is not really binding is not the case," Latting said.
"Absolutely the expectation is that if you apply to Johns Hopkins, or anywhere, with an early decision program, your intention is to enroll if you're admitted, and there's a commitment, and there's a trust that's assumed there that's violated if the students don't follow through on that."
The more pressing early decision concern among universities, though, is not related to binding agreements. In recent years, early decision programs have entered a season of change - following years of discussion, Harvard University recently dropped their early decision program, and Princeton University followed suit shortly thereafter.
Both Harvard and Princeton, along with the University of Virginia, are on the cutting edge of this era's collegiate experimentation,.
All three universities essentially cited a lack of diversity in early decision applicants as a main reason for excising the programs.
Each institution individually claimed that their early decision programs were yielding applicant pools that particularly lacked socioeconomic diversity.
Princeton's President Tilghman said in an article for the Daily Princetonian, the early decision program was, "Advantaging those who were already advantaged."
On a similar note, John T. Casteen III, president of University of Virginia, stated in a press release on the university's web site that the excision of the early decision program at the University was "an effort to remove an identified barrier to qualified low-income students and their families who have long believed that top-tier universities were not within their reach."
According to Latting, it is unlikely that Hopkins will follow suit and get rid of its own binding early decision program, due in large part to the fact that Hopkins has yet to experience major problems with the program.
The Hopkins early decision pools have been sufficiently diverse.
The only reason to excise the program would be the secondary reason schools like Harvard and Princeton especially have given for the change - namely, that eliminating early decision is the only way to be a part of the solution, rather than a part of the problem: Helping to alleviate the excessive stress the college admissions process puts on high school students.
Latting did acknowledge that a future academic climate might necessitate reconsidering the issue, saying that there is, at Hopkins, no current conversation about eliminating early decision.
"In five or ten years, I can imagine that we would have that conversation," he said.
The need to reevaluate early decision at Hopkins, however, will likely depend on the results of the decision at universities that have already taken the plunge.
