Stressed-out high school seniors have one less early admission to worry about. Harvard University announced this week it will drop its early admissions program because the program favors the rich, advantaged students.
While this may be true, the change is risky. Harvard is one of the few universities in the country willing to do this, and it is only willing because it has an endless amount of applicants and a $26 billion endowment. Potentially, the school risks losing a few good applicants, but when Harvard accepts one in 10 applicants, it's a reasonable risk to take.
While the program promotes and will ensure equality between the advantaged and disadvantaged students, many other prestigious universities are not planning to follow suit. Unfortunately, this may be the path to failure for the program. Harvard has already admitted it will not keep the program if other schools continue early admissions.
So while the university is trying to equalize the application process, it may be doomed to fail. Students wanting to know where they will attend school earlier in the year will choose other prestigious universities and not Harvard. When the university realizes this is happening, early admissions will return.