It's official: early admission dropped: after months of academic debate, UNC takes a stand. (In the News).

Apparently, officials at the University of North Carolina have been closely following the arguments against early admission. In early May, Chancellor James Moeser announced that UNC is dropping its early admissions practice, which had only been in place for three years. "Bottom line, we believe that eliminating the practice will provide an atmosphere of more thoughtful choice," he says. He also notes that it will better level the playing field for less advantaged and minority students. The decision makes UNC the first major university to drop early admission--earlier in the year Beloit College (WI) dropped the practice, as well.

UNC's policy change fuels the fire Yale President Richard Levin ignited when he spoke out months ago about early admission. He charged that early admission is detrimental to schools and students, and asked that all Ivy League schools band together to drop the practice (40 percent of Yale's freshman class came through the early admission gate). He's already completed exploratory meetings with the U.S. Justice Department to ensure that the schools can drop the practice, en masse, without violating antitrust laws.

Levin and others have said that early admission forces students to choose a school too early in the selection process, causing unneeded anxiety. Critics point out that the practice also favors well-off students who can afford to commit to a school because they don't need to wait on financial aid approval from that institution, or others they are considering.

Moeser says UNC has been studying its early admission process for the past three years and has determined that the 20 percent of students accepted through this process tend to be more affluent than many others, and white. Revealingly, they also have lower GPAs and test scores than students accepted in the later admission process. Says Moeser: "We have data to prove the hypothesis that early admission favors the upper class and works to the disadvantage of people of color."

Not everyone is pleased with UNC's announcement, however. "I've received some e-mails from disappointed parents and students," Moeser acknowledges. Assuredly, UNC's decision marks only the beginning of interesting developments to come.