There are numerous examples of a matching market unraveling as the selecting sides are each incentivized to match earlier to the detriment of the overall process. I suspect the undergrad admissions process is on this path. But first, here are other examples: - Medical residency placement: even in the early 1900s hospitals were moving to earlier offers to get the best students. It was fixed in 1952 and refined later through an organized match process optimizing for student and hospital preferences - Private equity hiring of investment banking analysts: interviewing for the next job began very quickly after new hires had started their 2 year commitment to a bank until JPM announced this year they would fire employees who signed their next employment contract more than 6 months in advance of leaving. - College athlete recruiting: after colleges started offering scholarships to high school freshman and sophomores, NCAA adopted strict calendars in recent decades for when contact could first occur and written offers made. - Federal judicial clerkships: still a mess as there is no coordination across courts of even within a circuit; some judges recruit 1L students before any grades have been released and make exploding employment offers. Historically selective colleges had Early Decision deadline of Nov 1 and regular admissions deadlines of Jan 1. But the competition for the best students is intense. That's leading to early opportunities for the most in demand students (athletes, under-represented, top students). Students in the Questbridge program have a summer application and October notification. Some schools have a Dec 1 deadline for honors scholarships applicants to beat the regular deadline. Selective schools have a "pre-read" over the summer or earlier with unofficial acceptance for recruited athletes. Columbia and some other schools will do a "pre-read" and offer informal guidance on whether they'll get in via ED to high school summer school students. Chicago recently started giving earlier notification, essentially ED0, to their summer school students. The previous informal coordination with common deadline dates that kept this matching market stable is starting to unravel. With more colleges exploring ways to get the most in-demand students, I expect this to completely unravel in coming years as colleges race to go first. It will eventually take federal government action to fix it.