<p>I know what they mean and what each one does, but could someone explain to me the pros and cons for applying ED / EA vs. applying RD?</p>
<p>Applying early, either ED or EA, means that you aren’t submitting your applications at the same time as everyone else. So you look more interested to admissions staff, and in fact some colleges explicitly give you a boost for applying early. Also, your reccomendation letters will probably be better, because your teachers won’t be trying to write yours at the same time as everyone else’s.</p>
<p>^This, and also some schools ask to apply early for scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>Also, if you’re accepted early to the school you want to attend, you don’t have to apply anywhere RD. Similarly if you’re rejected to your “safety” EA/ED it gives you a second chance to aim lower RD so you know that you can get into college somewhere.</p>
<p>So what are the disadvantages?</p>
<p>Besides you don’t have as much time to complete the application.</p>
<p>You can’t take the November SAT or ACT to boost your score, and the college doesn’t see your first semester senior grades.</p>
<p>^ I thought Nov test date is the last for EA and ED, am I wrong?</p>
<p>Depends on college: all EA and ED accept through Oct test date, not all but probably majority accept Nov, although some of those limit it to Nov SAT IIs.</p>
<p>Well an obvious disadvantage for ED is that if you’re accepted you have to commit and cannot consider other options.</p>
<p>ED usually presents fewer or smaller financial/merit aid awards. That’s because an ED app kinda says “If you let me in, I’m coming no matter what. I don’t even care what it costs.”</p>
<p>Most ED policies I’ve seen say that your financial aid offers will be unaffected by when you choose to apply. Having said that, it would be rather hard to prove that a low offer was due to your ED application, so I’m sure there’s some degree of “hmm, i guess they don’t really NEED that much aid”.</p>
<p>With ED you are legally bound to attend the school if accepted. You can apply to other schools, but you promise to withdraw any other applications if you are accepted. If you are deferred you are free to apply to other schools. If you are rejected then you have to scurry around and crank out your remaining apps during December, (if you haven’t done so already).</p>
<p>Advantages: You have access to the full pool of available slots. If you are a reasonably competitive candidate, you have a reasonable chance of being accepted. The trade-off for this access if two-fold. First, you must decide by late October where you want to go to college - you must be sure that your ED choice is the place for you. Second, you have no opportunity to compare financial aid offers. Most schools say they will meet need, but with ED you’ll never know if college 2 on your list would have given you more aid.</p>
<p>Thus the disadvantage is you trade freedom of choice and any financial aid leverage for access to the total available number of admit slots.</p>
<p>NOTE: This is my opinion only, but I don’t believe an ED application will help a sub-par candidate get into a particular school. I believe you need to be at least in the 50th%-tile or better statistically to get accepted. In other words, you need to be an average candidate vis a vis the entire incoming class, and therefore someone who would have an average chance of being accepted in the RD round.</p>
<p>EA is early action and is non-binding to the student. As a result the feeling is that since you are not committing to a particular school it is in the interest of the school to only accept the most outstanding candidates. I don’t know how true this is, but it seems logical; student “A” expresses interest by applying EA, school “X” says yes we want you, student “A” knows he has a place to go come the fall and then can apply or not apply to additional schools. EA is not legally binding and you have until May 1st to make your decision and to compare financial aid numbers. Frankly I don’t see why schools offer EA, they get nothing from it that they wouldn’t get from RD. Maybe it’s to manage work flow since EA cut-off dates are earlier than RD dates.</p>
<p>RD, regular decision, is just that. You submit your application with everyone else in the pool and you vie for the slots remaining after the ED candidates have been accepted. Schools with EA will theoretically accept fewer candidates from the RD pool given that they have offered acceptances to EA applicants. RD is not binding, you find out your results in March and you are free to compare schools and fin aid offers.</p>
<p>ED is the only restrictive option, the others leave you all your options.</p>