<p>Hey everyone, </p>
<p>I'm a rising senior. I can't decide if I should apply RD, ED, or EA to my schools.<br>
My list: Reed, UChicago, UCLA, UCBerkeley, UCDavis, NYU, BostonU, Amherst, Brown, Northeastern, Tufts, UOregon, UWashington.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of EA and RD? Do more people get accepted EA? Does EA see your first semester of senior year?</p>
<p>If you are not sure whether or not to apply for ED, then your best bet is NOT to because it is binding. That being said, if you want to use ED, you must be 100% sure that is the school you want to attend and that you can financially afford it. You are agreeing under an ED policy that if admitted, you will absolutely attend. </p>
<p>EA is early action. The great part about early action is that it gives you the opportunity to find out earlier whether or not you’ve been admitted to a certain program. For the most part, you can apply to many schools EA; however, certain schools, such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have SCEA–single choice early action. This means that should you apply to their school early action, you may not apply anywhere else under an early action plan. You can still apply regular decision though. </p>
<p>Oftentimes early action gives you a slight advantage in the application process simply because more kids are accepted through this method. BUT if you were accepted EA, you would have been accepted RD as well, so you don’t need to feel compelled to apply EA. It basically means you have your applications ready earlier to send in so you can find out earlier. The deadline is usually early to mid-November, as it is with ED. </p>
<p>Aside from that there is RD–regular decision. This is when all applicants to a pool are applying to the school. The advantage to this is that your applications are due later–in the beginning of January. But you have to wait until March or April to hear back. </p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, anyone who would’ve been accepted through the early action or decision options would have also been accepted through the regular decision cycle. It is just a matter of deciding how to tackle the application process. The first step is understanding financially capabilities and logistically finding a plan of attack because each option has its pros and cons. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>“if you want to use ED, you must be 100% sure that is the school you want to attend and that you can financially afford it. You are agreeing under an ED policy that if admitted, you will absolutely attend.”</p>
<p>Except when you apply ED asking for financial aid; this Common App rule then applies:
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>If they don’t offer enough, you decline the offer and apply RD elsewhere.</p>
<p>But apply ED only to your number one favorite, when you want only to know “Can I afford it?” You have to take or leave the offer without comparing to others; you could get a better FA offer at RD time.</p>
<p>“As I mentioned earlier, anyone who would’ve been accepted through the early action or decision options would have also been accepted through the regular decision cycle.”</p>
<p>sorry but this is inaccurate</p>
<p>^ ED usually helps at least some at most schools, but it might tend to be true at ultra selective schools.</p>
<p>If you apply to a binding school, say, Columbia, will they take more value in your application than a regular decision application? Will it show devotion and commitment to the school?</p>
<p>Hi I know this isn’t my thread but just a quick question: if you apply EA or ED and get rejected/deferred, can you apply again RD?</p>
<p>It shows some more devotion but at such an ultra-competitive school, they might not be looking as closely at devotion because they know a ton of people want to go there. Interest at some schools varies in importance. I can’t speak on behalf of Columbia because I don’t know much about it but don’t rely on the fact that you’re applying ED to demonstrate interest–use your supplemental essay if it is a “Why Columbia?” type to show just how much you love the school and belong there.</p>
<p>If rejected, NO. You may not re-apply; that is why I said that you would have been accepted RD if you were accepted ED. If rejected, the same principle holds. I know someone above disagreed with me on this point, but that’s fair enough. I’ve heard that repeated a ton of times at various schools and while there are cases where it doesn’t hold true, at many schools, especially with low acceptance rates, it does. </p>
<p>If deferred, your application automatically goes to the regular decision applicant pool. You don’t need to reapply for this to happen. From there they will make a final decision about your application.</p>
<p>In general I really like some EA applications … with EA acceptances you 1) know you are in somewhere months earlier … and 2) you likely can cut done your overall number of applications (for example, cut out safeties if you get into a match EA).</p>
<p>The big caveat/question is will your EA application be as strong as your RD application will be. If you’ve had strong grades, ECs, and SAT that match your potential to me a few EA applications are the way to go. However, if your grades are trending up or you’re planning on another crack at the SATs waiting to apply may make sense.</p>
<p>SCEA and especially ED are different animals since you need to cut your list to one school. There are all sorts of strategies for using an ED or SCEA application … for our kids I only recommended using ED or SCEA if they had one school that was definitely their first choice school.</p>
<p>sunnylou, what is your first choice in that list? What role will financial aid play in your decision? Have you already run the Net Price Calculators on the websites of all of your choices?</p>
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<p>Not for the same academic year.
But yes for following years.</p>