Relaxing Early Action

It seems that more and more colleges have heartlessly decided that undergraduate admissions are simply not competitive or difficult enough. Despite surges in applications each year and a nationwide frenzy to get into the best schools, many of these institutions beckon eager high school applicants with the "tough love" approach; they figure they'll make college admissions as difficult as possible, and then the student's acceptance will be that much sweeter.

Probably most indicative of the Ivy League's stricter admissions policies is the trend away from flexible early action admissions to binding early decision admissions. One by one, almost all members of the Ivy League have changed their admissions policies, making an already rigorous and stressful process confining and restrictive as well. By requiring students to select and literally bind themselves to a particular institution as early as October of their senior year in high school, early decision curtails students' response to personal growth during those last months at home with regard to college decisions.

We happily reaffirm that although our so-called competitors in New Haven and rural New Jersey have submitted to early decision policies of admission, Harvard has resisted this trend and has stood by its early action procedure. And earlier this month, the admission office lofted themselves even higher on our scales of approval by permitting Harvard early action candidates to apply early action at other schools as well.

Although Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70-73 admitted that the change would probably have very little impact on the College's applicants, we laud the revision of policy all the same. Especially considering the growing trend among students to apply to collge early, we understand that the change is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else; a nod to struggling applicants unsure of which coast they belong on, what classes they want to take, what type of student life they want to experience, and which team they want to root for.

The school's recent change admissions policy, as minor and as inconsequential as it may be, is a welcome recognition that college admittance can be a dreadful experience, and as ironic as it may seem, Harvard is just trying to ease that process.