UNC has no plans to drop early action admission

To lessen anxiety for college applicants, more and more institutions are deciding to end early admission programs in favor of a single deadline.

The University of San Diego recently decided to end its non-binding early action program because it was causing stress for students and families, said Minh-Ha Hoang, the university’s director of admissions.

Early action programs allow students to apply — and receive an admission decision — at an earlier deadline than an institution’s regular application deadline.

She said the university was deferring too many applicants, and consolidating to one deadline would allow officials to evaluate the increasingly competitive pool of applicants all together.

“The academic caliber of applicants has gone up,” Hoang said.

She said that of the students who applied by the early deadline, the number of students deferred outweighed the number of applicants given a definite answer of acceptance or denial.

Jenna Robinson, director of outreach for the conservative-leaning John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, said the main advantage of early action programs is letting universities know early what the student body will look like the next year.

Having an early action deadline gives universities more time to plan for the next year, Robinson said.

But Hoang said because USD deferred too many applicants, that advantage was no longer there.

The University of Delaware dropped its binding early application program in 2006, having deferred more than half of its early applicants that year, said Jeff Rivell, the university’s deputy director of admissions.

“There’s an opportunity for a more thorough, complete review,” he said.

Getting rid of the early admissions program has not hurt the university, Rivell said.

“We certainly have not experienced a decline in applications.”
Ashley Memory, senior assistant director of admissions at UNC, said the University has no plans to discontinue its early action deadline.

UNC’s early action program has an application deadline of Oct. 15. The regular deadline is Jan. 7.

The main benefit of having two deadlines is to give more flexibility to students, she said.

About 3,000 more applicants apply to UNC by the later deadline, Memory said, adding that the admission rate for early action is higher.

“Better-credentialed students tend to apply early.”

This year, 5,079 early applicants were admitted, and 2,766 students were admitted who applied by the regular deadline, Memory said.

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