<p>I'm the oldest child in my family, and am the first one applying to college in this country, so I am very new with this. I was confused about several topics. </p>
<p>If you apply early action (non-binding) and get in, when do you have to accept by? Can you wait until the regular decision letters come in? Also, if a college has rolling admission, what does this mean for the applicant?</p>
<p>Finally, does applying EA/ED improve your chances of getting in? If you like several schools, why wouldn't you apply to all of them early? </p>
<p>Sorry for all the questions, but I appreciate it!</p>
<p>The reason you’re confused is that there are several different programs with different rules but similar names. For non-binding early action, you apply and hear back early, but you can wait until May 1 to make up your mind. Sometimes, however, you are permitted to apply to only one school this way. Nonbinding early action can give you peace of mind (if you get in) and may keep you from wasting time and money on applications to schools that are not your favorites. However, you need to apply with your “numbers” from the end of your junior year. So if you want to take the SAT again in the fall of your senior year, hoping to bring up your score, or if you think your fall term senior grades will help your GPA or class rank, you might just want to apply regular decision.</p>
<p>Binding early decision is much more restrictive; you sign a contract promising you will attend the school provided you get sufficient financial aid, and if you get in you have to withdraw any other applications you may have made. You can therefore apply to only one school via this kind of Early Decision. If you apply on a binding early decision program, you need either to be able to afford the full price of the school, or else know what your financial aid situation is and what your likelihood of getting need-based aid at that school might be. If you look in the Parents forum, you will see several threads from families whose kids have been accepted via binding early decision programs to prestigious, expensive private universities and now realize they can’t afford to attend. It’s possible, but messy, to get out of these contracts.</p>
<p>Generally but not always, applying to binding Early Decision programs improves your chance of getting in. Early action, not so much.</p>
<p>Rolling admissions means that you apply some time, generally during your fall semester senior year, or over the winter, and then hear back within a month or so. Super-selective schools tend not to have rolling admissions because they want to be able to compare all their applicants together. Less selective ones, that know that they will take a student with a GPA above X and an SAT score above Y, generally offer rolling admission schemes. The only drawback is that rolling admission schools also tend to have people accepting them in a “rolling” fashion as well. Those who send in their deposits earlier in the year generally get preferential treatment for dorms and such.</p>
<p>Note “the student may decline” since you’ve already submitted the financial data the school uses to make a decision; there’s nothing more to prove.</p>