PASADENA, Calif.

HOW MANY of the best choices in life are shaped by external pressure? How many times does having only one choice benefit our decision-making?

Yet this is what tens of thousands of high-school students face annually, along with their parents, when they apply on an “early-decision” basis to colleges and universities.

Early decision began decades ago in the Ivy League (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale) as a method for students from elite high schools to identify the Ivy League college of their preference as a convenience for the students and these colleges. However, as the higher-education market heated up in the 1980s and ’90s, hundreds of colleges adopted early decision to lock in part of their class, sometimes a large portion, as a way to beat the competition. Moreover, the US News & World Report college rankings at the time rewarded schools with high yield rates (the percentage of admitted students who actually enroll.) Since early-decision students yield at nearly 100 percent, this was a way to climb in the rankings without really changing the quality of education delivered.

In other words, the concept of early decision morphed from one in which a small number of students and schools used it as an expedient to one which became a manipulation of the college-going market for purposes that benefited individual colleges.

Today, US News no longer uses yield rates to calculate its rankings, and prestigious schools such as UNC-Chapel Hill, Virginia, Yale and Stanford have dropped early decision because it reduces student options, complicates the college-admission environment, and because information on how to apply under the program is not evenly available to students across the nation.

Some colleges nonetheless persist in offering the program, and along with it comes enormous pressure on students borne out of their fear of not getting into a “good” school — a fear is that is unfounded. Colleges and universities with early-decision plans capitalize on the anxiety of students and parents by requiring students to commit to one and only one college at the time of application. In other words, early-decision plans ask students to forsake all other colleges that may admit them before they hear from any of them, before they know their opportunities for financial aid, and before they have the added benefit that is conferred by the high-school senior year.

Indeed, students must apply through early-decision programs very early in their senior year of high school, usually no later than Nov. 1.This cuts off their ability to spend the next few months exploring what manner of college environment would be right and to consider carefully their full range of admission offers and financial aid.

Frankly, there is no need to apply for early decision and there is no need to decide on a college choice until the traditional May 1 deadline.

The truth is that there are many right choices for each student, and each student deserves the chance to understand them. As a student, you want to savor every last minute of time reflecting on whether a particular college is right for you. This process is one of the most important learning experiences and growth phases of your life — until you arrive at the most informed choice, based on who you are and the kind of person you hope to become.

We do neither you nor ourselves any favor by speeding that process, before you can discern if you will flourish at a small school or a large one, a research university or a liberal-arts institution, a local university or far-off college. Where will you thrive? At the University of Southern California, a school that has a reputation for strong academics, a highly selective admission profile, unlimited social and cultural opportunities, we could easily institute an early-decision plan to secure firm, early commitments from a vast base of prospective students. But that would rob them of months in which they could explore academic programs, location, finances, ambience and attitudes at schools around the nation.

Many students fail to grasp that they, not others, are in the driver’s seat. Students control two of the three decision points: Where to apply and where to choose. There is simply no need to give the power back to a college that is overly eager to fill out its fall roster. Your reflection and self-discovery while you choose a college is crucial to your life journey.

At the same time that many colleges are prodding students to commit to them early, we are seeing the release of new college rankings for 2009, which only increases the pressure for students to attempt to be associated with the “best” college that will have them. This anxious quest is the antithesis of the quest for sophistication, wisdom and intellectual independence that is the essence of a college experience; that quest is reflected in Einstein’s observation that “everything that can be counted doesn’t necessarily count; everything that counts can’t necessarily be counted.”

So that is my advice to the prospective college student: Let no college tell you that what counts is an early commitment to attend that particular institution, and let no one pressure you or your family into investing their treasure before you are ready. You will find the right path by realizing that your destiny lies in your own hands, not in the hands of any who would pressure you for their own purposes.

Jerome A. Lucido is executive director of the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice, and vice provost for enrollment policy and management, at the University of Southern California.