Applicants seeking admission to seven or more colleges has almost doubled over past decade

The Daily Princetonian
November 29, 2011

By Daily Princetonian Staff

Top Colleges educational consultant Steven Goodman is attributing the decline in the early applications pool at the University of Pennsylvania to the reinstatement of Princeton and Harvard’s early action programs, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Penn received 4,526 applications for early admissions this fall, which marks a 0.98 percent decrease from last year’s 4,571.

Princeton and Harvard received 3,547 and 4,245 early applications respectively.

The 2011 decrease in early decision applicants comes in the wake of a 26 percent growth in early decision applications from 2009 to 2011.

“Penn is tied to what goes on at Harvard and Princeton,” Goodman told The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Meanwhile, Penn’s Dean of Admissions Eric Furda told The Daily Pennsylvanian that there may be a “small causality” between the drop in early decision applicants to Penn and the return of early action programs at Princeton and Harvard.

Peer universities such as MIT, Columbia, Stanford and Yale also saw a decrease in early applications by 4.72 percent, 5.68 percent, 0.83 percent and 18.01 percent, respectively.

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