All 5Cs but Scripps to withhold early decision data

Four of the 5Cs have decided not to publicly release their early decision admissions data this winter, a departure from past years, when the schools have published ED data and released acceptance letters to ED students simultaneously. Scripps College did release its ED statistics.

Administrators said they made the change after determining that releasing early admissions information while regular decision applicants are still waiting to hear back from the colleges ― which generally occurs April 1 ― “contributed to unhealthy feelings of angst and pressure among our current applicants,” according to Seth Allen, Pomona College’s dean of admissions.

Peter Osgood, Harvey Mudd College’s admissions director, said via email that Mudd has also “gradually moved away from supporting things that add stress to an already mysterious and anxiety producing process for high school students.”

Osgood said early admission information can also be taken out of context and “broadcast in a way that speaks less to match and more to applicants’ strategy [for applying].”

Claremont McKenna College spokesperson Peter Hong confirmed CMC will wait until after the regular decision cycle to release any admission information. And although Santiago Ybarra, Pitzer College’s admissions director, initially agreed to provide TSL with ED statistics, he later said via email that Pitzer had reversed its decision.

CMC, Pomona, Mudd and Pitzer are not alone in deciding against releasing ED scores before regular decision is announced. Stanford University announced last August that it will stop announcing both ED and regular decision admissions rates because it wants to reduce the emphasis on admission rates and encourage all students to apply.

Scripps, on the other hand, provided TSL with its Early Decision I data.

Seventy-six of the school’s 158 ED1 applicants were offered admission, an acceptance rate of 48.1 percent, Scripps spokesperson Carolyn Robles said via email. The number of ED1 applications was down slightly from last year, she said.

While Scripps has not released Early Decision II data yet, the school admitted a total of 90 students from both ED programs combined last year, TSL reported previously.

About 30 percent of this year’s Scripps ED1 students come from California, Robles said via email. Approximately sixteen percent are from the Northwest, and about 15 percent are from the Northeast. The remainder of students hail from the Midwest, South, Southwest, West and foreign countries.