Does anyone actually know how much (as in what percent) applying early action vs. regular decision affects your chances of getting into RISD? I know that you find out your results sooner, and heard that the acceptance rates are slightly higher upon applying EA, but that’s about it.
There’s no Early Action for RISD, just Early Decision. If $ are a concern be VERY careful with ED. RISD is rather stingy with aid $ and if you’re accepted ED you MUST accept their offer. However if they want you and you could easily go to another school, they could possible give you more $ with regular admission to ‘sweeten the deal’.
This ‘game’ applies with all the schools BTW. Early Decision only helps if there are no financial worries and your family’s willing to pay whatever the school asks initially.
Update (For anyone who sees this while applying in future years):
According to the RISD Admissions staff in 2017-2018, ED “made offers to fewer than half.”, and RD admitted about 20%.
I highly recommend joining the RISD Admissions FB group, as the admissions staff were very helpful and responsive throughout the entire process. (I personally ended up getting accepted for RD, and was pretty much working on the portfolio up until the day it was due.)
Good Luck!
Seconding what @purplemagenta said - both myself and my D (who’s a sophomore now at RISD) had questions during the application process and the FB admin at the time Lucy was extremely helpful.