Early Decision and Early Action
Many students, parents and counselors love to speculate and strategize about early decision and early action. At some colleges, the acceptance rate is significantly higher for the early pool than the regular pool leading many students to play their odds and apply early in hopes of increasing their chances of getting in. Other students apply early because they know, without much doubt, that their first choice school is far above their second choice on their preference list. Some people apply early because they just want to be done by the holidays and don’t want to have to think about it anymore.
First, for clarification, some terms and later a discussion of how to know whether you should apply early or not.
Early Action – schools that have early action programs allow students to apply earlier than the regular deadline (November 1 or 15, as opposed to January 1 or 15) but do not bind students to attend if accepted. You find out sooner but you retain the right to decide whether or not to attend the institution.
Early Decision – schools that have early decision programs allow students to apply early (November 1 or 15, also) but if an early decision applicant is accepted, he or she MUST attend that school.
Early decision is binding. Early action is not.
Harvard did away with its early action program and stirred up much discussion about the impact and consequences of these early programs. Brown University is a school that has had both early action and early decision policies. Yale, too, has switched in recent years. Colleges have compelling reasons to adopt each option, or do away with it entirely, and they may well continue to alternate between the two. Let schools fuss about their policies. Your job is to find schools that you think would be a good fit. And when you do, be sure to add those schools to your list of shout-outs.
Apply early if:
1.you know which school you want to attend and your #1 choice is clear,
2.you have taken care of your standardized testing and your recommendation requests in advance,
3.you are an athlete being recruited by the coach and have regular contact with that coach (if you fall into this category you will know it) and it is your top choice school.
Do not apply early if:
1. you are applying to selective schools and your junior year grades aren’t your strongest because schools will not see your senior year grades. At best, they will see midterm grades.
2. you’re doing it because everyone else is doing it,
3. you think it’s the only way to get in.
A note on the statistical difference between acceptance rates of early options and regular decision.
In my experience, the early decision/action pool has a high concentration of recruited athletes (who have been carefully prescreened by coaches and stand a good chance of being admitted), and legacies (who usually have a greater acceptance rate for a variety of reasons). Students who can afford to ignore senior year grades are likely to have consistently strong grades from 9th-11th grades, activities, recommendations such that they do not need to rely on the success of senior fall (and all the leadership potential and coursework that accompanies it). Basically, yeah, acceptance rates for early decision/action are often higher because the pool is a stronger pool. And by stronger, I mean that it includes many students who colleges and universities admit at higher rates anyway. It means very little for the applicant who does not fall into a special category.
Clearly, debates can and do occur around the issue of legacies and athletes and the special preference they receive, but until that debate is settled and so long as application deadlines are approaching, most applicants do not need to concern themselves with these issues. They will not be fought and won in the time between now and when admissions officers are reading your application.
Focus on what you can do for yourself and don’t worry about the hype about having an easier time getting in early versus regular decision. Colleges are well aware of the categorical differences in the two pools and reserve plenty of spaces at regular decision. Schools want to leave themselves options and one of those options is to accept the best from both the early and regular decision pools. It’s ok to pace yourself through this process and not apply early. Yes, everyone seems to be doing it, but your college application process is too important and personal to rely on the trends of your peers.
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Posted on September 24, 2007 under Advice |
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Comments (14)
I've been thinking about applying Early Action. Thanks so much for clarifying. Hold on, is Early Action similar to Early Decision in that you can only apply to one at a time?
Posted on September 24, 2007 8:07 PM
Another benefit of Early Action is scholarships, specifically the fact that many colleges will only consider you for scholarships if you apply early. This is usually not true (to my limited knowledge) if the school only has an Early Decision policy.
Posted on September 24, 2007 9:14 PM
This is a great piece of advice, I've been wondering about the early action programs that some colleges seem to offer. Thank you for posting this!!
Posted on September 25, 2007 6:41 AM
Hey Sarah I'm so glad you brought this topic up. Although I am a Junior, this puzzling aspect of colleges still intrigues me so you cleared up most of the speculation. I still have two questions:
1) If you get accepted early action, do you have to decide immediately or can you see you results for regular admissions and then compare them?
2) If you get denied early action or decision, can you apply again regularly? Haha that might be a dumb way to do things but I'd still like to know.
Posted on September 25, 2007 4:20 PM
If you apply Early Action, you do NOT have to go to that college. If you apply Early Decision, and are accepted, you must attend that college. If you are denied, you can apply regular decision. Actually, you can apply EA and Regular Decision while you ED application is pending, but if it is accepted, you must pull all of your other apps. If you are denied, then you obviously do not need to pull your other apps.
Posted on September 26, 2007 4:20 PM
Wellesley has this great program called Early Evaluation where you apply only a few weeks before the regular deadline. They then send you letters late in February about your chances of admission: Likely, Possible, or Unlikely; you then have a basic idea what to expect when they send out acceptance letters at the regular date.
I was wondering if any other colleges offer this? It seems like a great alternative to ED and EA programs which rely too much on Junior and Sophomore year, and give you so little time to prepare your application.
Posted on September 28, 2007 12:31 AM
Just out of curiosity ...
Is Early Decision "binding" in the legal sense of the word? If so, then what is the legal basis? Or do the colleges just have an agreement to "black list" students who fail to attend their Early Decision college?
I went to an information session at the University of Pennsylvania this summer and the admissions officer seemed very serious about students not attending other schools if the Early Decision agreement wasn't fulfilled.
Just thought I would ask and share...
Posted on September 28, 2007 4:37 PM
Thank you very much. I have been stressing about this topic for a while. A sigh of relief came over when I heard you say that colleges save room in both early and regular pools. Now I feel that i can take the needed time to perfect my regular admission application rather than rush an early action or decision one. Thank you.
Posted on September 29, 2007 5:27 PM
This is a very important article for students to read. I know of a couple of friends who got caught in the trap of early decision rather than early action. I myself, have taken the intiative to apply for early action at the Colorado School of Mines and within 10 days I found out that I got accepted. This article provided some great insight because now I know that I have a decision of whether or not I wish to go to that school (which I am going to, but it is still nice to not be bound to anything :) )
Posted on September 30, 2007 9:00 PM
Hi all -
A point of clarification. If you apply in an Early program (either Action or Decision) and are denied, I do not believe you are allowed to apply regular decision.
When admissions officers make decisions about early applicants they either admit, defer or deny students. If you're deferred, it means they will reconsider your application during the regular decisions reading process. You've got another shot. If you are denied, your dance is done.
Things may have changed since I worked in admissions but I can't imagine why reapplying in the same cycle would be permitted if a college has already said no. If they're unsure, or think there's a chance you might still get in, they'll defer you. When we would deny students during early reading, it meant that that student was not admitted during early and had no chance of getting admitted during regular decision.
As I often say, though, check with individual schools if you're unsure.
Posted on October 8, 2007 8:14 PM
Alexander Brown -
A question bringing together both my admissions experience and my law degree - I love it. My answer, however, will be very lawyerly and perhaps a little unsatisfying.
Bottom line, I can't speak for the practices that colleges and universities take to enforce the binding element of their early decision programs.
Enforcement mechanisms are not standardized and I think the dilemma itself is rare (most students who get in are happy to attend). That said, any legal action that a college could take to ensure specific performance would probably not be worth the resources to pursue.
Colleges and universities operate in large part on an honor system that hopes and trusts the intentions and integrity of the students in the applicant pool. Universities also have little interest in unnecessary law suits.
College counselors have an interest in upholding this integrity to avoid a negative reflection on them, their school and future applicants.
Students themselves hopefully will continue to approach this decision responsibly.
Posted on October 8, 2007 8:24 PM
There are those who consider ED a binding contract, and others who look at it as a commitment not to be broken ethically. It can be broken, in that after being accepted ED, if one cannot afford the school even with the financial aid package offerred, a student may so inform that school and be released from the obligation. For any other reason, a school may "blackball" by informing other schools about what happened; ED schools do communicate with each other.
Sarah, I'd suggest you add to your list of reasons not to apply ED, a point re: the need for financial aid. If you plan to compare aid packages from different schools (and they will be different!), don't apply ED.
Posted on October 26, 2007 7:11 AM
Roy -
Great point. Thanks for bringing it up.
Posted on October 29, 2007 8:34 PM
I've heard that if you take the early decision choice, that getting financial aid is harder because colleges want your money earlier (assuming you get in) and financial aid is harder to get earlier in the game. Is that true?
Because I really want to do early decision, but if financial aid isn't plausible that early, it would prevent me from it.
Posted on November 21, 2007 6:56 PM