Early Action Question

As I understand it, in the past one could apply Early Action 1 and get two more looks (EA 2 and Regular Admission). Now with the new policy, if one applies EA, the possible outcomes are: offer of admission; rejection; or wait list (no second or third look). I also understand that those offered admission via EA in past years had a composite profile above the profile of the entire class.

For example, see the Early Action composite profile for those offered admission for the class of 2015 as reported by Objee in his post dated 1/19/11, "Early Action Finished":
Average SAT Scores: 649 CR 662 M (includes converted ACT scores)
Average HS Rank: 8% (includes reported and calculated HSR's)
Average GPA: 3.94 (all reported GPA's are converted to a 4.00 scale)

and compare that to the class profile for the class of 2015 is shown on the USCGA website at http://www.uscga.edu/display.aspx?id=340:
Standardized Test Scores:
• Median SAT: 630 Math, 590 Verbal, 588 Writing
• 52% in the top 10% of high school class
• 85% in the top 25% of high school class
• 99% in the top 50% of high school class

That's a 58 point difference in CR and a 32 point difference in Math and about 50% of the 2015 class was below the 10th percentile of their high school class compared to an average 8th percentile average for the EA group.

So, my question is whether the selection criteria for Early Action has been changed? In the past, an applicant who considered himself/herself competitive with the class profile had nothing to lose and more to gain by applying EA1. However, with the new "one look" approach, it seems like more of a gamble to apply EA unless either one is similar to the profile of earlier EA groups or the selection criteria for EA has changed so that those offered admission will be more in line with the entire class profile.

Of course, given the rising number of applicants and the smaller class size, the 2016 class profile may look like last year's EA composite profile, but because of the change to the "one look" approach for EA applicants, I think applicants should know if and how the selection criteria for EA has also changed.

Dedham said:

As I understand it, in the past one could apply Early Action 1 and get two more looks (EA 2 and Regular Admission).

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Last year, EA1 or EA2 deferrals would be reevaluated (once) under RA if they updated their records by February 1st.

Dedham said:

So, my question is whether the selection criteria for Early Action has been changed?

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There is no "selection criteria" for EA and statistically all standard applicants appointed (during EA or RA) are pretty similar. EA numbers, including EA deferrals, for the Class of 2015 are below; there were 1,264 RA applicants...158 were offered appointments and 48 were offered CGAS appointments.

Objee said:

The Class of 2015 had 1,017 EA applicants...162 were offered appointments under EA, 18 were offered CGAS appointments under EA, and 837 were deferred to RA. We reevaluated some lesser number of EA deferrals under RA, since all 837 did not update their records with new information, and 34 were offered appointments under RA, 35 were offered CGAS appointments under RA, and the rest were eventually sent non-acceptance letters.

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Those 34 applicants who were initially deferred under EA, but then offered appointments under RA, represent the type of applicant who will now be offered a spot on the waiting list under EA and reevaluated following RA. The reason that the class profile appears to shift so dramatically from EA to RA is because we tender appointments to our CGAS applicants during RA and this group (since most do not retake the ACT/SAT exam and we do not adjust high school rank or GPA to account for their strong academic performance at prep school) will have lower ACT/SAT averages and high school performance than the standard applicants receiving direct entry appointments.

Objee, Does that imply that a candidate is more likely to be offered a spot in CGAS if they apply during RA? Or is the number of CGAS appointees higher during RA simply because there were more applicants?

As always, thanks for your knowledgeable contributions.

Thanks, Obgee

Thanks for the prompt response and the clarification in the apparent discrepancy in the profile of EAs versus the entire class. Your explanation makes sense and wasn't one I had considered. It is good for DS (and all other applicants) to know that the same standards apply for EA and RA. The focus should be on doing one's best on the application and, given rolling admissions, doing it expeditiously.

Objee, I'm curious what the profile of a CGAS appointee would look like. Are they superstars in leadership, extra curricular activities, commitment etc, but just slightly under par in terms of academics? Will the reduced number of overall slots have an impact on the CGAS number too? Once they accept the CGAS appointment, will it still be theirs to loose, or (due to the reduction) will they still be in competition with others for an appointment to the class of 2017?

Thanks again.

educ8 said:

Does that imply that a candidate is more likely to be offered a spot in CGAS if they apply during RA? Or is the number of CGAS appointees higher during RA simply because there were more applicants?

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In the past, we offered very few CGAS appointments during EA (only 18 of 101 tendered to the Class of 2015) because we wanted to give as many EA applicants as possible the opportunity to be deferred and reevaluated for a direct appointment under RA. As you can see from the statistics in my previous post, we tendered an additional 35 CGAS appointments to EA deferrals...so EA applicants actually received more appointments (53) to CGAS than RA applicants (48) did. Now that we're no longer deferring EA applicants for reevaluation, we will offer many more CGAS appointments during EA, but continue to keep an equal split with RA.

Straight from the Bear's mouth

Thanks for the info! Your help is so valuable. Nearly every day my DS has another question and usually we scour the threads to find the answer...if we don't find it he'll say something like "Ask Objee" and there it is...straight from the Bear's mouth! Thanks again!