Columbia's Early Decision

September 2011 entry

Early Decision application deadline: October 6, 2010

Merit fellowship consideration deadline: January 5, 2011

Regular Decision application deadline: April 13, 2011

Just attended an info session at Columbia on Monday. The guy from admissions who spoke to us said that there is relatively no difference between applying ED or later on. He basically said your chances of getting in were the same regardless of when you applied, unless you applied after January 5th.

Food for thought...

wow that info was life-saving
thanks

I was also at an info session where the head of Colombia's Adcom said that applying Early Decision does not increase your chances at all.

I pressed him on the matter and He repeated himself. I asked him what benefit I would get from applying Early Decision. He said none other than you would find out earlier if you were accepted.

They also mentioned during the session that the Early Admissions students tend to be the happiest, and most successful at CBS, because they really want to be there.

This sounds a bit contradictory in my mind. They claim not to favor the Early Decision applications, but then say that they have done studies that show that Early Decisions are the best students. If they believe their own study, then they probably do favor early decision applications.

One potential reconciliation is that they may not favor Early Decision because they are early decision, but perhaps there is a higher acceptance rate among Early Decision applicants for the same reasons that they make the best students: namely their desire to come to Columbia really stands out. According to that approach, if you can craft an identical application for either early decision or regular decision, there should be no difference in the outcome.

I suspect however, that Early Decision, based on my own hunches will increase the chances of those with quality applications. I think that CBS wants to limit the number of applicants get accepted, but go to Harvard/Wharton or another higher tier school instead. If Columbia thinks you have a decent shot at one of those schools, then they may not take your desire to attend Columbia at face value. Applying Early Decisions will back that up.

i applied early and i guess it might be advantageous just because there will be less applicants to compare against.

By the nature of the process, early admits are considered before regular applicants. However, the advantage that might present cannot be determined without stats on the % of admits taken as early admits to the number of applicants.

If they take 25% of their class from a early pool of 1000 as opposed to 75% from 5000 of regulars, then there is a certain advantage. However, we can't expect the school to release their acceptance percentages in each phase. Adding to it, there's a application deadline of Oct 6 for early admits but no decision deadline. They can defer decisions of the early applicants until after they start considering regular applicants in Dec - note that since they have a rolling admissions process, they'd have at least two months (Oct & Nov) of applications they can consider in Dec. They also suggest in their FAQs that 'invitation to interview may extend the review process beyond our 8-12 week goal.'

The likely students to be accepted are ones who have pretty good chances of being accepted at other top schools - the ones Columbia wouldn't want to lose. I don't think how much one loves the school stretches far. Without an advantage, it doesn't make sense to apply and get tied to Columbia but then again the advantage, if any, cannot be determined. If you really do love the school then it wouldn't matter - even if you get a Booth admit in Dec which you'd have to decline due to a subsequent admit at Columbia. You can only hope Columbia will make-up their mind by Dec and at least give you a chance to pursue other schools in Round II which start in Jan.

I agree, it s a yield management tool, not a fan contest.

Adcoms said earlier this year :


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