Fewer students applied for admission to Yale through the school’s Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) program this year as compared to last year. And by fewer, applications are down by over 18%! That’s quite a big figure in the world of highly competitive college admissions and it bucks the trend we read about seemingly every year at every Ivy League school – how applications are up, up, and away.

So why do you think applications for admission to Yale are down this year? Well, it certainly has a lot to do with Harvard and Princeton’s decisions to reinstate their Single Choice Early Action policies. Harvard and Princeton, after all, compete with Yale for applicants and many students likely didn’t want to apply Single Choice Early Action to Yale when presented with the same option at both Harvard and Princeton.

But, while it may be logical, we still want to point out Yale’s spin on the bad numbers. If you’ll recall, we made a little bit of fun of Harvard and Princeton a while back for their PR spin on reinstating Early Action programs. According to the “Yale Daily Herald,” “Though the change represents an 18 percent dip from last year, two admissions experts interviewed said the change and accompanying decline is still positive for Yale because the reinstated admissions policies have forced students to weigh their restricted application choices more carefully.” Oh please! No school wants to see a dip in applications! It’s positive for Yale because the new policies force students to weight their college choices more carefully? Yeah, right.

Let us know your thoughts on Yale’s PR spin by posting a Comment below.