The Case for Early Decision

It’s college application season, which means that deadlines are quickly approaching. One deadline to watch out for is the Early Decision (ED) deadline. If you aren’t sure about the difference between Early Decision and Early Action, check out our blog post on the topic. 

While your student is applying to college, they may have heard that applying in the Early Decision round increases their chances of admission. They’ve heard right! Generally speaking, acceptance rates in the Early Decision round are roughly two-to-three times higher than the rates during Regular Decision (RD). Two factors play into this: 

• High Yield Rate
  Colleges want their accepted applicants to choose to attend their university. The more students who choose their university, the better they look. Since Early Decision is binding, the college has an opportunity to fill up freshman slots with students who are guaranteed to attend.

• Selectivity
  The more students a college rejects in the Regular Decision round, the more selective they seem. If the college fills more slots in the ED round, there are fewer slots available in the RD round, giving more opportunity to reject students in this round.

There are two rounds, and therefore deadlines, of ED. Which should your student apply to?

It is important to note that in both rounds, the acceptance is binding. What this means is that if they are accepted in either round of ED, legally, they must attend. So only apply ED to their absolute top-choice school. 

ED I deadline: November (typically the 1st or the 15th). 

Advantage: Schools generally tend to accept more applicants in the first round.

Disadvantage: Since ED is binding, they can only apply to their top choice, leaving their other schools off the list.

ED II deadline: January 1st or 15th, depending on the school. 

Advantage: If a student is rejected from their first-choice school, they still get a shot at their second-choice school. 

Disadvantage: Fewer students from EDII are accepted than in ED I. 

Whichever round your student chooses, Early Decision still gives them a statistical advantage over Regular Decision. This advantage is so significant that there has been some controversy recently over the practice of Early Decision admissions. Regardless, we highly recommend that if your student is able, that they take advantage of these admissions rounds!

So check their preferred schools deadlines, and good luck!

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