As reported by Inside Higher Education, applications submitted through the Common Application before Nov 1 increased 41% over pre-pandemic levels. The increase reflects more submissions to universities that practice Early Action, Early Decision and Rolling Admissions. IHE reports the increase is due to a variety of factors. Many flagship public universities and HBCUs became Common App members in recent years. However, the article also recognizes an increase in students wanting to apply in early rounds due to perception that admission is less competitive than in the Regular Decision round with deadlines usually on or after Jan 1.
This increase affects all applicants generally, but may have specific impacts on Brazilian applicants, especially those in national curriculum programs.
But, first let’s briefly unpack the real and perceived benefits of early rounds. There are very real benefits to applying before Nov 1.
For rolling admissions, especially where the applicant has a high likelihood of admission, an early yes from a school can buoy an applicant’s confidence as they navigate this anxiety-inducing time in their lives.
Applicants applying to universities that practice Early Decision are making a binding promise to the university that they will enroll if admitted. There can be real benefits to the applicants as admit rates can be markedly higher in the Early Decision round. An example is Grinnell’s ED admit rate which last year was 52.8% while their Regular Decision admit rate was only 8.3%. Other examples are Columbia University and Tulane University which had admit rates of 12.5% vs. 2.7% and 67.9% vs 7.9% respectively. Universities also benefit from the practice as it makes it easier for them to plan their first year class. Yield (the percent of admitted students who matriculate) drives many institutional planning decisions, and so may drive a university to lock in a large part of their first year class through Early Decision. Selective institutions such as Tulane, Pomona, and Middlebury admitted over 60% of their first year class through ED last year. Thirty-seven universities that practice Early Decision, nearly all of them highly selective, admitted 50% or more of their first year class through ED. The Early Decision practice can be a win/win for both universities and for applicants who have the financial wherewithal or who clearly qualify for enough financial aid to make a binding committment to matriculate if accepted before seeing their offer. The downside is for students who would prefer to compare admissions and financial aid offers, and who prefer not to make a such a commitment to only one school.
The concrete benefits for Early Action rounds are less clear those of ED. Early Action is an early round of admission, but does not require the binding commitment to enroll if admitted that ED demands. Admit rates tend to be higher than those of Regular Decision. But the reasons for the higher rate is murky as many recruited applicants (for academic, athletic or other talents) are admitted through Early Action. In addition, the eligibility for many scholarships is tied to an early application deadline. These factors cloud any clear statement that applying EA increases admission likelihood. And with the new hot trend to apply early, this edge may be even less clear. Regardless, applying through Early Action to the universities that offer it sends a message that the applicant has a high level of interest in attending that university. Each university will weigh that interest differently.
While students can simultaneously apply to one Early Decision university and any number of Early Action and Rolling Admission universities, before Nov 1, there are a handful of highly selective universities that practice a restricted form of Early Action, placing limits around where the student can apply simultaneously. Please pay attention to the specific requirements of each university’s Restrictive Early Action policies.
In the past it has been thought that another overall benefit for the early application, EA or ED, is that their application receives more attention from the admissions office since there are fewer early applications to review. The new data challenges this old advice.
This new trend may also shift another piece of traditional advice, recommending students considering applying in any early round to compare the strength of their early application to their potentially stronger regular decision application. The thinking is that if the student can put together a much stronger application for the regular round than in the early, often due to factors they don’t control such as when their senior year grades are released, it was worth waiting to apply in Regular Decision. In light of this wave of early applications, I no longer know how firm this advice should be.
How does this relate to Brazilian applicants specifically? It depends greatly on where the student attends high school.
Students who attend international-facing schools in Brazil often follow a northern hemisphere school calendar. The vacation between school years aligns with the northern summer, and provides an opportunity for students to research universities, complete testing, write essays and plan their deadline strategies. In addition, their high school curriculum better aligns with the rhythm of the application season. Even if their calendar follows the customary Feb-Dec southern hemisphere school year, the schools that offer international curricula such as the IB, or various US state curricula to complement the national curriculum, will have covered content on the SAT and ACT, especially math and advanced-level English, early enough for students to reflect this in their early applications.
For these students, getting started early by achieving good grades throughout high school especially in core academic subjects, completing testing by the June before you apply, dedicating time to research universities to create a balanced college list and a reasonable deadline strategy is the general advice.
The above advice doesn't always translate for students in the Brazilian national curriculum. It is well known that the Ensino Médio does not include enough academic English training to prepare students for university-level study taught in English. Student only receive 45 minutes a week dedicated to English. To remedy this, students interested in studying at university taught in English have long sought to build their skills through private English-language programs, tutoring, independent study and English Language Proficiency test preparation.
It is less known that the students in Brazilian national curriculum high schools may not have seen enough of the advanced math in the SAT or ACT in time to reflect it in an application sent before Nov 1. Students in their last year of Ensino Médio will have been exposed to most of the math on the SAT only by the end of September or early October, a time when Ensino Médio students have their attention turned to the ENEM and vestibulares. Scheduling SAT or ACT testing, which often requires travel, during the October crush to prepare for the ENEM, can inhibit these students from putting together a strong early application. Testing too early will be a disadvantage as they will not have had the benefit of classroom exposure to the math concepts on these tests.
I have seen savvy Ensino Médio students who have long had their eye on university in the US dedicate extracurriculum attention to meet this gap through online classses and test prep. These students had the foresight to take such measures, and saw benefits in their overall grades by balancing their time with online academic pursuits. This especially benefitted students seeking engineering programs that require at least rigorous high school level pre-calculus, and in some cases calculus which is not taguht in Ensino Médio.
I’ve seen some national curriculum students forgo standardized testing all together which in some cases limits their options. One clear example, having no standardized test score is a barrier to admission to the lower cost, Brazilian-friendly Florida public universities.
I have also seen Brazilian national curriculum students wait to apply during the year after graduation, dedicating their new found free time to researching programs, improving advanced English and Math skills, preparing and testing well, deepening their engagement in activities, organizing ways to finance their education, and creating much stronger applications. Seeing the world anew through a post-highschool lens can offer these students a tremendous opportunity to grow. In a blink of an eye, August 1 is upon them and the application window opens, and they are ready.
If you are thinking about applying to the US and wondering if you should get on the early application train, Explorers can help. Get started by scheduling a free 30-minute consultation.
The Early Decision stats sited in this blog post come in large part from the Common Data Set, collected and presented in this very useful resource created by Big J Consulting.
Comments