Last week, when Harvard University announced that it would end its early admissions policy in an attempt to balance out student diversity and expand financial aid, many officials at colleges and universities across the country regarded the move as controversial and even unnecessary.
Temple is one of the few schools that applauded Harvard’s
decision.
“Temple was pleased to see that Harvard made the decision
they did,” said Director of Admissions Timm Rinehart. “We hope that more colleges and universities would feel like they could give up their early decision programs too, because in the long run, we think that’s in the best interest of the students and their families.”
Early-admissions policies often require students to apply months in advance and to commit upon acceptance. Some school’s policies, like the University of Pennsylvania, even discourage students from applying to other schools by offering them a definite decision before the application deadline.
Temple accepts applications on a rolling basis, making an early-admissions policy for the university unnecessary.
“We don’t want to have early-admissions because we don’t feel that students are well-served having that kind of program,” Rinehart said. “Temple is really committed to access and to try to provide as much access as we can.”
Statistically, applying to colleges early improves the applicant’s chances of being accepted and benefits the school that wants to enroll the most sophisticated students. College officials have often criticized these programs because they generally advantage the applicants that are the most financially well-endowed.
La Salle University, Drexel University and Villanova University also have early-admissions programs.
“I think the disadvantages of a binding early decision admissions policy outweighs the advantages,” Rinehart said. “Most students are best served by waiting as long as they can before they make their decision because they change, their parents change and you don’t want to lock yourself in before you have to.”
Despite Harvard’s decision, other Ivy League universities
such as Yale and Stanford Universities have not yet made any plans to change their policies.
According to Rinehart, Temple is committed to the best interest of its applicants and has no future plans to adopt an early admissions policy.
“Part of our mission is to try to enroll a wide range of students and not be so selective that we would need an early action program,” Rinehart said.
“Early decision disadvantages students who will need financial aid because they won’t be able to compare their financial aid packages or see what financial aid they would get before they make a choice.”
Last year, about 18,000 students applied to Temple. The university admitted 11,000 and enrolled roughly 4,000.
According to Rinehart, all of those enrolled made the decision to attend Temple after Jan. 1.
Maya Davis can be reached at maya.davis@temple.edu.
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