This year, 1,929 intrepid souls applied early decision to Johns Hopkins, marking a 3 percent increase over last year as well as the largest-ever early decision applicant pool.
Tag: early decision
How Smart Do You Have to Be to Get in To Johns Hopkins These Days?
It’s that time of year again, when anxious students nationwide start to hear back from colleges — at least the ones they applied early to. Looking at these stats about the 526 students who were accepted for early admission to Johns’ Hopkins Class of 2018, all I can say is I’m impressed–and I’m sure glad I don’t have to apply to college again.
How to Deal With College Decisions
The days when college decisions came in a nice, fat envelope are long gone; these days, life-changing information comes virtually — which means that it can be accessed anywhere, anytime. And that can have dramatic consequences.
Early Decision is a Bit Later This Year (Thanks, Sandy)
Here’s one less thing to panic about: many colleges are postponing their November 1 deadline for early decision applicants. But students hoping to get a couple extra days to obsess over their essays should take warning; every school is handling this differently.
- Some schools, Johns Hopkins included, are accepting late submissions only from students in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. So if you’re out there in Wyoming and just feel as though you deserve another day or two before you click “submit,” watch out — the admissions officers probably won’t take kindly to you.
What to Do Once Those Early Decision Answers Arrive
Johns Hopkins mailed out its early decision acceptances late last week — yes, that’s them in the photo — meaning that soon 561 eager prospective Blue Jays will be celebrating soon. (And, alas, that 898 will get less-than-happy news.)
As we noted before, lots of schools have seen a jump in ED applications, but Hopkins’s this year was quite significant; the school got nearly 10 percent more applications than last year. Our guess as to why? The university’s consistent and engaging online presence — for example, you can read here about what one admissions officer ate for breakfast on the day that admissions went out. Maybe that sounds silly or trivial, but kids in the midst of the college admissions race are often so consumed with anxiety that every little bit of data is soothing.
The Hopkins admissions team also understands the limits of the online platform. Admissions staff member Daniel Creasy posted a plea that students process the result — whatever it may be — offline:
“No matter what decision you receive, get off the computer after you receive your e-mail. This is a major milestone in your young life, and you should share your initial reactions and emotions with your family and those closest to you. These people have been there since the first moment of your life, and they will be there FOREVER. Your family is not some online community. Your family is not Facebook. Your family is not some anonymous screen name. Your family is not this blog. Please heed this advice. Receive your decision and sign off. Don’t update your Facebook status. Don’t post a comment on this blog. Share your thoughts and emotions in the REAL WORLD first. The virtual world will be there later for you to provide a social media spin on your news. I say it every year … let the news sink in first. React in the real world before entering the cyber world.”
Wise words.
Early Decision Angst: Dartmouth Tells on Friday
This email came from a friend early this morning:
“Did you hear Dartmouth sent an email to all its ED applicants saying, ‘We know we told you we’d respond by 12/15, but we’re going to send you all emails with results by this Friday.’ There are some pacing, nauseous kids around!!
Somehow my daughter knows that 30 (local) kids have already been admitted ED into her first choice school. What an awful reality — she can actually keep real -time track of her likelihood of admission!!!”
Good luck to all the students anxiously awaiting to hear from schools. Keep in mind the perspective of our wise college intern, Arlo Shakur: “You get to do whatever you want pretty much, there are no parents around and you live with people your own age. College is great no matter where you go.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
Early Decision More Popular — and More Controversial — Every Year
For most people, November means turkey, raking leaves, and the start of the Christmas song onslaught. For anxious/overachieving high school students, though, November is the season for early decision applications.
For those of us who are lucky enough not to have to worry about these things anymore, or who don’t have any nervous teenagers in the household, a bit of explaining might be in order. When students apply early decision, they are declaring the school they apply to is their first choice, and promising to enroll if accepted. You can only pick one school to apply to early decision… as opposed to more flexible options, such as early action.
There are plenty of arguments against early decision programs — they stress kids out too much, favor the rich, and pressure kids to make decisions before they’re ready to — which is one reason that Harvard suspended its early decision plan since 2007. This year they reinstated it, and got a flood of applications — 4,245 hopeful high schoolers, to be exact… or more than double the anticipated freshman class size of 1,660.
Locally, Johns Hopkins also saw a significant jump in early decision applicants (7.64 percent more than last year). Check out early decision stats for Harvard, Hopkins, and all sorts of other schools here.
What’s your take on early decision — a stress-fest, or a helpful way for serious students to make their preferences known?
