As summer winds down and senior year approaches, early round application deadlines are coming up fast. School lists and application strategies are no longer hypothetical scenarios, but rather concrete plans to be executed in the coming weeks. If you’re still a bit hazy on all the different early options, we’re here to define them for you one more time— and to encourage you to apply early decision to optimize your odds.
EARLY OPTIONS
Rolling Admission: Submit your application any time within the open window and typically receive a decision within 6-8 weeks (though it’s worth noting that turnaround time in the test-optional application boom has slowed at many schools). Since schools are filling seats as they receive applications, it’s in your best interest to apply early.
Penn State, Marquette, University of Pittsburgh, and St. Andrews, to name a few, all have rolling admissions.
Early Action (EA): Submit your application by this early deadline, which ranges from October 15 to November 15, and you’ll typically receive a decision before winter break (though some schools, like UNC Chapel Hill and University of Wisconsin, Madison, released EA decisions as late as mid-February last year!). Since you are not obligated to attend if you’re admitted, it’s a good idea to apply to several Early Action schools.
Some EA schools include MIT, University of Michigan, and, USC (for the first time in 2022). If a school offers both EA and Early Decision (like Northeastern, Villanova, and UChicago, for example), then your odds are still much higher with ED.
Restrictive Early Action (REA): This option places a condition on the Early Action policy: you cannot apply anywhere Early Decision; and, in some cases, you have additional restrictions on where else you can apply EA. Notre Dame and Stanford have REA policies, but you’ll need to read the fine print of each closely because their policies differ. Georgetown’s Early Action policy doesn’t call itself “restrictive,” but it does in fact restrict you from applying anywhere ED. Despite their restrictions on where you can apply in the early round, REA schools are non-binding— you don’t have to attend if admitted.
Single Choice Early Action (SCEA): Similar to REA, you cannot apply to any school’s Early Decision plan. You also cannot apply to other private institutions’ Early Action plans, but you can apply to nonbinding plans at public, international, and rolling admissions institutions.
Yale, Princeton, and Harvard have SCEA plans.
Early Decision (ED): Apply to one school’s binding Early Decision plan (as long as you’re not doing an REA or SCEA) by November 1 – November 15 deadlines and receive a decision by mid-December. If you’re accepted ED, you are obligated to attend the school and must withdraw all other applications immediately.
Of the eight Ivy League schools, five (Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania) offer Early Decision.
Early Decision II (EDII): If, come winter break, you have not been admitted to a school you’d be thrilled to attend, you still have another shot at a binding plan through EDII. You’ll apply in early January and receive a decision by mid-February; if admitted, you must attend.
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THE EARLY DECISION ADVANTAGE
Choosing an Early Decision school is a huge step: you’re essentially proposing (a four-year) marriage to a college! It’s a decision that makes a lot of students nervous. Why do we encourage it so strongly? First, let’s look at some numbers:
- Last year, Boston University received 3,501 EDI applications, accepted 28% of them, and filled 50% of their class across EDI and EDII. They received nearly 81,000 applications total and accepted 14% overall. So, at BU, odds of acceptance in the early round were double the odds in the regular round.
- At UPenn last year, the odds were four times greater in the early round: 16% acceptance rate in ED, 4% in regular.
- At Northeastern last year, the Early Decision acceptance rate was 32.6%, the Early Action acceptance rate was 6%, and the overall acceptance rate across all rounds was 7%. Northeastern is a prime example of how schools with both ED and EA plans show a strong preference for students who are willing to make a binding commitment.
- In an extreme example, Tulane admitted only 106 students, out of a class of 1800, in Regular Decision last year.
EARLY APPLICATION FAQS
WHY ARE MY ODDS SO MUCH BETTER IN ED?
It’s all about the yield, baby. Colleges want to maximize their yield—the percentage of admitted students who enroll—because higher yields make them look more desirable, in turn allowing them to attract stronger applicants. Binding early decision plans also allow colleges to accurately predict their yield, crucial for managing class sizes, dorm room allocations, and institutional revenue.
Admissions officers are also reading a much smaller pool of applicants in the ED round which means they have more time to spend with your file. Duke, for example, received 4,015 applications in the early round for the class of 2026, and almost 46,000 for the regular round—nearly ten times more. Even though many “hooked” students apply Early Decision (recruited athletes, legacies, and institutional “VIPs”), unhooked students with stronger academic profiles often become even more desirable for colleges looking to balance out testing/GPA averages in the early round.
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WHAT IF I GET INTO MY ED SCHOOL AND CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY?
If you’re applying for financial aid, choosing an ED school is not a decision to take lightly because you won’t have the luxury of comparing packages across multiple schools. Unmet financial need is the only legitimate grounds for breaking an ED contract, so you can back out of the agreement if a school admits you ED with insufficient aid. But, having sacrificed your ED advantage, you will then be forced to swim in a much larger regular decision applicant pool. Before choosing an ED school, be sure to carefully read their financial aid policy and use their net price calculator (like this one at Cornell) to see how much it will cost you.
IS EARLY DECISION MY SILVER BULLET?
Unfortunately, not! We don’t recommend making a Hail Mary or a moonshot out of your ED choice. Analyze your school scattergrams and colleges’ admitted student profiles; if your GPA and test scores put you in range, Bingo! If you’re nowhere close, then you would be wasting your ED token on that school. If you look pretty close, but also have high-impact extracurriculars and a distinctive academic focus, then you can consider it a risk worth taking.
EARLY DECISION: THE RIGHT “FIT”
To choose an Early Decision school is akin to saying “yes to the dress” (and then wait a month or so to see if the dress wants you back). So rather than just tossing this to chance, do your research; shop around; try on a bunch for “fit”; and make sure you’re in the best shape of your life by prioritizing your grades, testing, and high-impact activities.
With early decision, you are giving colleges the assurance that if they ask you to dance, you’ll say yes.
Anita holds a BA in Philosophy from Princeton, where she is an alumni class officer and former interviewer, and an MA in English from Middlebury. At Princeton she also contributed her drive and competitiveness to the women’s lacrosse team, winning an NCAA Division I National Championship and three Ivy League Championships while earning national scholar-athlete academic distinction and the Connie McAllister athletic department award for “effort, selfless dedication, enthusiasm and heart.” She brings these qualities to her relationships with students as she helps to bring out the best in them.
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