“Whenever Harvard does anything, it’s more than a trickle down — there’s a major effect. … When Harvard acts, it causes other people to say, ‘That’s the highest order of ethical behavior.’”

— John Blackburn, Admissions Dean at the University of Virginia, in the Sept. 13 issue of Inside Higher Ed.

Makes me nauseous.

I get the feeling that an e-mail sent out to American college and university presidents last Tuesday probably went something like this:

It’s time to stop this insanity.

Everyone’s been bowing down to the great and powerful Harvard since Tuesday, when they decided that their early action program didn’t fit their admissions scheme anymore.

While eliminating early admission programs is probably a good idea for the college and university community in the long run, let’s dissect the thought process here a little bit before we stage a revolution and force every college and university in the country to follow Harvard’s path immediately.

The admissions officers at Harvard eliminated their early action program because they CAN.

They CAN because they know that they will get, at the very least, a similarly talented freshman class regardless of whether they have the early action program or not. They CAN because they have the money to compete for any student they want with superior financial aid packages.

According to William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, in Inside Higher Ed, “We hope other places will give up early admissions. … Plenty of institutions that are exceedingly strong [in enrollment rates] could consider this.”

Why exactly do they think that if they do something everyone else will just follow them as if they are the Pied Piper? It’s either because everyone usually does, or the media just thinks so, based on editorials found in all of the major national newspapers last week.

I’m sure that early admissions programs do, as Harvard says, have a negative effect on minority and lower income students’ ability to get accepted to top schools, but eliminating early decision at Cornell at this particular point in time would be a horrible idea.

Why? Very simply, because Cornell is in the business of attracting the best and the brightest, and taking away the admissions office’s one “sure thing” would not help in that regard.

Not to mention the fact that, without an early decision program, Cornell would have to admit more students (to make up for the ones that are, right now, committed to attending), which would in turn raise our acceptance rate, lower our yield and consequently lower our U.S. News and World Report ranking, which, according to many people, is an extremely important factor in attracting the aforementioned best and brightest.

Frankly, I think it’s funny that a lot of the people who are always discussing the importance of rankings are the same people who think that everyone should eliminate early decision now. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Again, I believe that there is definite validity to the point that early decision/action programs disadvantage minority and lower income prospective students, and I agree that, in a perfect world, the programs would not exist. But, they do exist, and to ask the entire college and university community to abandon them willy-nilly without considering the particular ramifications of the change on a local basis is just not prudent. This is very much a decision that must be made on a school-by-school basis over time.

And Cornell just isn’t ready to take the plunge, because I am sure that if the students that were accepted early decision to Cornell last December were not bound to matriculate here this fall, and Harvard or Yale came knocking this past spring, many of our current freshmen would not be here right now.

This is not a criticism of Cornell, mind you, but merely a reality. A reality that will hopefully change. With time.

It’s really sad, though, that the only time that the higher education community pays attention to something like this is when Harvard does it.

When the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill eliminated its early decision program in 2002 and when the University of Delaware did it earlier this year, they didn’t make a peep. They made decisions that they felt were good for their schools and left everyone else alone.

The other Ivy League schools, not to mention the other colleges and universities in this country, are not sheep that are herded by one very outspoken shepherd. We are all schools with unique personalities, locations and situations, and we deserve to be treated as such.

The idea that one university produces the “highest order of ethical behavior” is just ridiculous. I’ve got nothing personal against Harvard, but I see no more reason to listen to Derek C. Bok than I do President Skorton when it comes to admissions policies.

So, Harvard, we’ll get rid of early decision if and when we’re good and ready, and not a moment sooner.

Eric Finkelstein ’06 is a former Sun managing editor and is currently a first-year student in the Law School. He can be contacted at ejf33@cornell.edu. Saturdays Excepted appears alternate Mondays this semester.