<p>When looking at schools to apply early action they say you can't apply if you are also applying early decision somewhere else. What is actually stopping you from applying to an early decision program and as well as an early action that you shouldn't be allowed to apply through? If I apply ED to Penn, how will Boston College know that I applied to a school ED? What can they do about it?</p>
<p>Your GC knows, and they have to send all the supporting docs. Schools rely on GCs to enforce their EA/ED policies and there can be consequences for the GCs and/or HS if they don’t enforce the rules. In addition, schools do exchange names of EA/ED students, so if they find you on another list, that is grounds for rescinding any admission you may have received from a school where you violated the rules.</p>
<p>First your guidance counselor should not allow applications to go out to ED to Penn and a EA to BC given BC’s guidelines. Second, both schools can rescind you if they find out. Not really worth taking the chance. </p>
<p>Please read this current, excellent CC thread, which addresses many of the ethical issues related to ED and EA: <a href=“Early Decision: What constitutes as not being able to attend because you haven't received enough aid - #8 by TopTier - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>Early Decision: What constitutes as not being able to attend because you haven't received enough aid - #8 by TopTier - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Fundamentally, it’s both unscrupulous and academically dishonest intentionally to manipulate/exploit an institution’s ED/EA rules; both you and your secondary school can be penalized if you do so. The details are thoroughly addressed in the foregoing thread. Further, @collegeappstory, perhaps you should consider if the values implied in your initial post, which started this thread, are ones that represent character and principles of which you’d be proud.</p>
<p>Almost every college cites “character” as a prime evaluation criteria… act accordingly. You’re not the first one to inquire about the underpinnings of EA/ED restrictions. They’ve not collapsed b/c people aren’t taking advantage of them. Why do you think that’s so? </p>
<p>Do you imagine a lack of enforcement or consequences? No way.</p>
<p>A group of us, all within the top 20 in our class out of 550 kids, started talking about this in class today. After a few minutes we couldn’t really think of anything preventing us from applying. The idea that the burden falls on the guidance counselor is pretty ridiculous. There is no way my guidance counselor is able to keep up with everything and make sure everyone is complying with EA guidelines.</p>
<p>@collegeappstory: I don’t know if that’s correct; however, I believe it’s also essentially irrelevant.</p>
<p>It says quite a lot – quite possibly, none of it good – that you and your peers (all in your class’ academic top five percent) would appear to be more concerned with whether or not you’d be caught doing something that’s blatantly unscrupulous than the appropriateness and propriety of the action, per se. The acclaimed intellectual C. S. Lewis once famously stated, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” There is profound wisdom in his observation. If you and your friends are half as bright and promising as your class-rank stature should suggest, perhaps you’ll give his dictum some serious consideration. </p>
<p>collegeapp: it’s very well possible that your GCs are inexperienced or overworked. Hopefully, they are experienced (at writing helpful GC reports for you and your mates’ apps to selective schools) and consequently, will be well-versed in the restrictions of ED or REA or EA.</p>
<p>ED: it’s not difficult to see if you’re applying ED
REA/SCEA: only six schools use this</p>
<p>550 kids in your class. How many are applying to more than 2 schools? 100?<br>
You’re kidding yourself that they know nothing. Or your GCs are so screwed up that they’ll be a hindrance to your apps anyways. You think top colleges don’t “blacklist” schools who knowingly support unscrupulous ED gaming kids? </p>
<p>Yeah. you keep believing that…</p>
<p>And you would be wrong about your GC not being able to keep up with the restrictions. The list of SCEA/REA is fairly short and doesn’t change much. They’re the only ones anyone ever has to look up the specific rules on - and someone who processes a lot of application probably knows them very well. At the very least, they’ll have a list of schools to check on the restrictions whenever they process them. I’m no expert and the minute you mentioned BC I knew there was some sort of REA restrictions, though I couldn’t tell you what they were. And everyone knows the ED rules, they’re easy.</p>
<p>Besides which, even if you got it past them, there’s no doubt at some point they would realize their error and ask you to correct it. And if you refused, they would be perfectly within their rights to protect their own reputation and report your violation to the school in question.</p>