With its announcement Monday afternoon, the University of Virginia became the third prominent university—and the first highly ranked public university—to dismantle its early admissions program, following Harvard and Princeton’s decisions earlier this month.

Just as Harvard and Princeton did, Virginia said that its move is an attempt to level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students who tend to use early admissions at a dramatically lower rate than middle or high income applicants.

“The opportunity that early decision has represented has come somehow to be the property of our most advantaged applicants rather than the common property of all applicants,” Virginia President John T. Casteen III said in a statement.

Despite the fact that 51 percent of Virginia’s in-state students in the Class of 2010—and 55 percent of out-of-state students—qualify for financial aid, fewer than 20 of the 948 students admitted through the early program applied for financial aid, according to statistics from the school.

Virginia Dean of Admissions John A. Blackburn told the student Cavalier Daily that though the university had been considering abandoning early admissions for two years, the decision’s timing was spurred specifically by Harvard and Princeton’s decisions.

Virginia’s yield rate—the percentage of accepted students who choose to matriculate—is lower than either Princeton’s or Harvard’s. Virginia’s yield is 53 percent, while Princeton’s is over 69 percent, and Harvard’s is 80 percent. In waiting until the spring to release its admissions decisions, Virginia runs a higher risk of losing prized applicants to other top-tier schools.

Blackburn, however, told the Cavalier Daily that he expects other schools to follow the trend, thus mitigating potential fears of a decreased applicant pool.

-Staff writer Benjamin L. Weintraub can be reached at bweintr@fas.harvard.edu.