This year’s record-setting number of early decision applicants to Northwestern have another reason to hope: A new study has found that students applying early decision to college have a better chance of being accepted.
“The State of College Admission” study, released by the National Association for College Admission Counseling on Oct. 20, found nearly 75 percent of students who applied early to college were accepted, significantly more than the 50 percent acceptance rate of students who applied regular decision to the same schools in Fall 2009.
The trend has not gone unnoticed amongst high school seniors. This year marked the largest early decision application pool NU has ever received, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admission.
At most schools that offer early decision, students send in an application in November and receive a response in December or January, earlier than regular decision applicants. Early decision is usually binding, and an admitted student is expected to withdraw all other applications in order to attend that university.
Early decision applicants had to send in their applications by Nov. 1, and NU has already seen a significant jump in numbers, said Christopher Watson, dean of undergraduate admissions. Last year, NU’s early applications totaled 1,690. This year, the admissions office has received 2,083, with more paper applications still arriving, according to Mike Mills, associate provost for University enrollment. With a 22 percent surge in early applications, NU hopes to see more than 30,000 total applications this year, Mills said.
Phil Wilson, a senior at Chelsea High School in Michigan, said he originally was going to apply to NU regular decision. He changed his mind when his relatives told him a story about someone who may have gotten in if she had applied early, he said.
“I knew I wanted to go to Northwestern, so I wasn’t going to take any chances when it came to my application,” Wilson, 17, said in an e-mail.
Students accepted early decision bring a valuable perspective to NU, Watson said.
“You bring an incredible spirit and energy from the start on campus because this is really where you wanted to be,” he said.
He said the increase in application numbers is due in part to NU’s burgeoning national visibility, whether from its Nobel Prize-winning professor Dale Mortensen, the new Good Neighbor, Great University scholarship program or a higher-profile football team. Representatives from the Office of Undergraduate Admission visited about 1,300 high schools nationally and abroad this fall to speak to students, a significant increase from the approximately 300 schools visited three years ago, he said.
For NU, 34 percent of early decision applicants were accepted in 2009 while only 21 percent of regular decision applicants were accepted, Mills said. Around 50 early applicants are deferred to the regular admission pool each year, he said.
Still, acceptance is based on the quality of the student, not when they apply, Mills said.
The acceptance rate for early applicants is higher because the overall quality of the pool is stronger, Watson said. The quality of the pool increases every year, and students who attend schools with the resources to spend on better teachers and counselors are more likely to apply early, Mills said.
Some schools have stopped offering early admission because of that advantage, including Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of Virginia. However, most schools still offer some form of early admission to applicants.
Applicants are accepted because they are smart and accomplished in and out of the classroom, Watson said. The supplemental essay on the application asks students why they are applying to NU, highlighting the students who know the University best. Those students are often early decision applicants, Watson said.
“They have really done their homework and recognize their chances for admission,” he said.
