Christopher N. Avery ’88, author of The Early Admissions Game, said that students who are admitted in early admission programs are typically more advantaged than those admitted from the regular pool.

Still, he said that eliminating the program does not necessarily increase the diversity of the applicant pool.

Harvard will continue to accept the same number of wealthy students with or without early action, said Avery, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School. But, he said, without early action, Harvard would not receive applications from some high school students who opt to apply early at other top tier institutions.

Regardless of whether Harvard made the right decision when it eliminated its early program, it is clear that Harvard failed to motivate many other universities to do the same.

“We obviously hoped that a significant number [of other institutions] would join us,” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ‘67 said during an interview Friday. “Unfortunately, we did not set a trend. We are disappointed and we think it would have been have a strong statement [about early action].”

In the end, only Princeton University and the University of Virginia followed course.

“I think the goal was, ‘let’s see if we can start a revolution.’ That was a valiant effort, but it didn’t happen,” said Avery, who said he believes that the situation would be different today had other schools followed Harvard’s lead.

Since few schools moved to abandon their early admission programs, Harvard was forced to compete with schools that could offer students admission guarantees earlier in the school year.

FINANCIAL AID

While Harvard administrators failed to push other universities to eliminate their early programs, other initiatives have had more success in altering the admissions landscape.

In 2004, when the University adopted the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, Harvard was the first top university to institute an expansive financial aid program.

Today, acceptance to Harvard guarantees a full ride to applicants with families that make less than $60,000 a year. Families that earn up to $180,000 a year are expected to pay no more than 10 percent of their family income in tuition.

Harvard’s leadership on financial aid pushed many universities, competing for the same top students, to create comparable financial aid programs.

“Harvard is doing about as well as it possibly could,” said Matthew M. Chingos ’05, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Harvard has in recent memory always had pretty generous financial aid.”

When Harvard announced the introduction of its financial aid initiative, peer institutions were quick to follow suit. By 2006, Yale and Stanford had unveiled similar programs with guaranteed free tuition for lower-income students.