A policy barring colleges from offering admission to students as early as their junior year in high school may be rescinded after some schools complained that it is harmful to their prospective students.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling, which sets recruiting standards around the country, voted at its conference in Pittsburgh last year to forbid schools from notifying students before Sept. 15 of their senior year in high school.

The move was seen at the time as a way to delay recruiting that some in the organization say starts too early. Specifically, it targeted a practice employed by some colleges of offering admission to certain high school students the summer before their senior year and, in some cases, while those students are still juniors.

Nearly 1,600 colleges and universities belong to the association. A number of them have openly complained since the rule's adoption, in particular moderately selective public four-year schools and two-year community colleges in the Midwest.

They say the rule penalizes highly qualified students who may not be caught up in the frenzy to get into Harvard or Yale, but nevertheless want an expedited answer from colleges with relatively open admission policies.

"This new policy may be appropriate for some institutions, but we believe there are many member institutions, including our own, [for] which this policy is not appropriate," stated a letter co-signed by officials from 10 Big 12 Conference schools.

"There has been quite a bit of concern about it during the year," said Djuana Young, an assistant provost for academics at Texas Tech University and one of the letter's co-signers. "I think as an organization, what we are basically saying is, 'They had good intentions, but is this really what they intended to do?' "

The backlash has prompted Mary Lee Hoganson, the association's president, to inform members that policy discussions will be reopened during the association's conference Sept. 27-29 in Austin, Texas.

Asked yesterday if the rule might be rescinded, the association's director of public policy, David Hawkins, replied, "It's a possibility."

Ms. Young said she personally expects the association representing admissions professionals will embrace a rule that gives more flexibility to schools including hers.

The rationale behind last year's amendment to the association's statement of principles of good practice was "to stem the 'admission creep' that pressures juniors/seniors earlier and earlier," Ms. Hoganson wrote in an Aug. 21 memo. In acknowledging the division over the new rule, she said the diversity of institutions around the country "makes it extremely difficult to come up with one-size -fits-all solutions."

Among other reasons, supporters of last year's rule change said juniors are just starting their college search and may not be ready for such a major decision. Some said a student who knows he's accepted could be less motivated to study his senior year.

For years, debate nationally about the wisdom and fairness of early admission has focused on elite schools notifying some students by December of their senior year. Last year's rule change did not apply to those schools, though a few of them, including Harvard University, recently decided to end their programs.

Of 650 schools that responded to an association survey last year, 25 percent said they had rendered decisions for some students before the start of their senior years.

At Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, the rule change left administrators trying to balance the importance of following association rules and doing what they believed was best for their students.

Given the rule change, "we refrain from putting it in writing, but certainly if we have a family come to visit the university in July or August and they have their credentials, we absolutely will tell them whether they would be admitted," said Terry Carlin, associate vice president for enrollment. "We would be crazy not to."

Administrators across the Big 12 Conference say students who know they are accepted before their senior year can focus more on college prep courses and activities including sports and get an early jump on applications for housing and scholarships.

And since the offers are typically nonbinding, those students can still change their mind up until May 1, the traditional date when students notify schools of their intentions.

The April 4 letter from Big 12 school officials said the new rule ignores the fact that some states have laws requiring schools to consider students after their junior year, and that many make preliminary freshman offers based on students' performance that year.

A similar letter was sent Aug. 15 by 15 public universities across Michigan, among them the University of Michigan and Michigan State.