<p>Okay, I know what they stand for: Early Decision, Early Action, Single Choice Early Action but I don't know anything about them. </p>
<p>Can anybody please post which schools offer what (mainly talking about HYPSMC and the like), and the drawbacks/advantages of each? </p>
<p>When are the deadlines?</p>
<p>What important things should I keep in mind when applying early or whatever it's called?</p>
<p>Early Decision is binding. The deadline for most schools for it is around November 1. If you apply ED, you are committed to the school: if you get in, you have to withdraw all your other applications and you HAVE to go there. This probably isn’t a good idea unless you’re sure of your first choice. Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn and Brown (amongst many others - Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, etc) offer this.</p>
<p>EA, you apply by November 1 and find out by mid-December, but you are not committed to the colleges. You can get admissions offers from all your schools (RD and EA) and then decide. You can apply EA to all the schools that offer it: for example, Georgetown and UChicago.</p>
<p>SCEA - the same as early action, but you can only apply under this to one place. Yale and Stanford offer this. You can apply RD to several other schools. </p>
<p>Wow, I feel so knowledgeable :D</p>
<p>So ideally speaking, EA is the best choice but not all schools offer it, correct? </p>
<p>Can somebody post an exhaustive list of which schools offer what?</p>
<p>^Just make a list of the schools you are interested in and go to the respective school’s website. I mean for EA there is MIT, UChicago, etc, but its simpler if you just google the schools you would like to attend.</p>
<p>You also might want to keep in mind some schools have rolling admissions – generally not the most selective, but always exceptions, including some public u’s. This is another way to try to get an acceptance early, and if nothing else, keep you and your child sane. Also keep in mind, that some public u’s shut down applicaitons if they have funding issues, and you may want your child to apply early, not that he or she will here early, but if next year there are the same problems with the economy as this, you might want to keep this in mind.</p>
<p>This has been asked dozens of times.</p>