The deal with the devil may be falling out of favor in higher education.
Programs requiring early applicants to commit to the school and forbidding them from applying elsewhere are falling out of favor as schools such as Harvard
University attempt to open their admissions process to a more diverse student body.
“Early Admission” may be in the process of being abandoned by other schools, but the University of Oregon already has an easily accessible process that is unlikely to change, Director of Admissions Martha Pitts said. The University uses a far different, non-binding process.
The University uses a process called “early action.” Students who apply before Nov. 1 are guaranteed an answer by Dec. 15, but are not required to commit to coming to the University and are not prevented from applying to other schools in the process, Pitts said.
Pitts said approximately 3,500 of the more than 10,000 freshman applications the University received this year met the early action deadline.
She said that while students who meet the early application deadline are not given any advantage in terms of being more or less likely to be admitted, having the extra time can come in handy.
“The advantage to the student is you know early on, and if there are any problems with applications you can get those resolved,” she said.
Pitts also said students who know their admission status early, especially if they know they want to go to the University, have a heavy weight lifted off their shoulders early in the senior year.
After the Nov. 1 deadline, the University admits students through a process called “rolling admission,” meaning that applications are reviewed as they come in. If students meet the requirements for automatic admission (a 3.25 high school grade point average and 16 completed credits), they will be admitted and notified immediately, Pitts said.
On average, about 75 percent of applications meet the automatic admission requirements. The rest go through a “comprehensive review,” in which factors such as the types of classes students
have taken and their extracurricular activities are taken into account.
The University has never used a more binding process of early admission because those programs put up roadblocks that do not serve the institution or its students well, Pitts said.
“Our concern is about bringing in top students,” she said. “We have great students here, but we are also very
access oriented and we don’t want to implement any policies that would either make students feel like they weren’t able to attend here if they’re qualified or that puts roadblocks in their way.”
Pitts said the University tries to make its admissions process very easy in order to attract students who either lack “family knowledge” of the admissions process or who don’t have access to guidance counselors in high school.
Many schools in Oregon do not have enough counselors, and any counselors available are often assigned to hundreds of students, making it difficult for them to reach
everyone, Pitts said.
“It’s a real concern for students, not just in Oregon but across the country. For that reason we try to keep our application and the process as simple as we can, while at the same time we get the information that we need to make a good decision about a student’s preparedness for success,” she said.
Pitts said there is no research on whether one demographic is more likely to apply early than another, but the “vast majority”
of early applicants are strong students.
“We also see a number of students who know they are going to have some challenges in the process, who know their grade point average is not exactly what we’re looking for, or they have an area of academic weakness, but they’re very responsible
students,” she said.
Unlike schools that have binding early admissions process, the early action process does not give students an economic advantage or disadvantage because all
financial aid applications received before the priority deadline are reviewed at the same time, Director of Student Financial Aid Elizabeth Bickford said.
“What I like about what we do here is that it allows students to evaluate the programs here at the University – the academic programs. They can evaluate where they want to be based on the academics, the financial aid offer, the environment at the school and make a decision by May 1,” she said.
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