Hi guys, I am a junior this year and will be applying to colleges in the fall. After having a discussion with a friend, I became really confused about the ED/ EA process. So I want to apply Early Decision to Cornell University but also early action to MIT and U Chicago. My reasoning was Cornell is my top school so if I get in great, I will definitely go anyway, but if I do not, I still have a chance at the EA schools. My friend said that when applying ED, you MAY NOT apply to any other schools during the early application process, only during regular. Is this true for all colleges, a select few, ivy leagues only, or what? Thanks for answering.
Google each school, look at its admission site and you should be able to understand their parameters. In general if a school has regular EA you may apply to other schools early (EA and ED). If a school has single choice early action (SCEA) you may only apply to that school early and may not apply to other EA or ED schools.
If you apply ED (like Cornell) or SCEA (like Harvard etc), you may only apply to one in the early round.
^^Viphan that is not true. If you apply to Cornell ED, you may still apply to MIT and UChicago EA.
@cba is correct. If you apply to Cornell ED, you can still apply to MIT and UChicago EA. But if you are accepted to Cornell, you are effectively obligated to attend (short of financial aid issues) and must immediately withdraw yourself from consideration at MIT and UChicago.
Schools offering restrictive or single choice early action programs are more complicated. They are non-binding but they restrict where else you may apply–for example, you’re NOT permitted to apply to any other school ED. Each school (HYPS, Georgetown, BC, Notre Dame) has slightly different rules so you’ll have to read the fine print or let an application like College Kickstart (www.college-kickstart.com) figure it out for you.
Good luck.
You are indeed correct. I was referring to one ED school and one SCEA school – for example, you cannot apply to TWO ED schools or TWO SCEA schools. But for OP’s intention, one ED and EA to others is fine.
I believe regardless you are able to apply EA to any state school you wish (but of course double check). So this would include UM, Wisconsin, UCLA, UVA and UNC. The danger is how upset would you be if MIT accepted you and so did Cornell. Only you can determine that. One thing Chicago definitely gives some very small amount of Merit Aid. Usually the reason to get out of ED is that the financial aid without merit aid is not enough for you to attend (and no you cannot always know that before). You also can submit your RD applications before you hear from most ED/EA schools (again double check) if you want to get a jump but you may be wasting the fee and unless you get a likely letter they will still only let you know in March
You can apply ED to Cornell and EA to both MIT and UChicago. You can have only one pending ED application. Whether you can also apply EA elsewhere depends on college’s particular rules. Cornell, like most school’s with ED programs, allows you to apply EA elsewhere. The issue then becomes what the EA school allows. Both MIT and UChicago allow you to apply ED or EA elsewhere and thus you can also apply to those two. A small number of EA colleges, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford, prohibit you from applying EA or ED elsewhere with exceptions for EA programs at public universities, and thus you cannot apply ED to Cornell and EA to those. Another fairly small number, including Georgetown, allow you to apply EA elsewhere but not ED and thus you cannot apply EA to those if you apply ED to Cornell. Majority of EA colleges are like MIT and UChicago and allow you to apply ED or EA elsewhere.
Ah ok thanks so much for clarifying!