Three Bags Full
Hamlet: Do you see that cloud that’s almost in shape like a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and it’s like a camel, indeed.
Ham: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is back’d like a weasel.
Ham. Or like a whale?
Pol. Very like a whale.
Though it's been a week since the intial "jolt", my EGOM is still picking up Updating this entry, the University of Virginia has also decided that--with the 2006 election cycle just on the horizon--'tis the season for empty gestures . UVA has up and decided that their university would be better off without early decision.
I love to see how ideas fall in and out of vogue like this--if it was such a bad idea and was producing such detrimental results, then why was everyone doing it in the first place? At least Nietzsche would be happy to know that the herd instinct, even among elite institutions of higher learning, is alive and well.
I hope that someone is already planning the study that will compare the demographics of the freshman class at these universities before and after they got rid of the early decision program (If not, I'm calling dibs on this one). I will wager you dollars to donuts, as my dad likes to say, that the change will be negligible at best. Those same students that were taken under early decision, affluent though they may be, will still get accepted under regular decision and everything will be as it once was.