I know that applying early decision will help with your college admissions, but does applying for early action help at all? I have read around on the forum that early action will not help but when I search up statistics, the acceptance rate for those who apply early action is basically always higher than apply with plain regular decision.
A small help in chance but a big relief if accepted. The question whether you are ready to apply early. Also, many schools offer merit aids only to EA applicants
I don’t think there’s any real difference in EA vs RD except that relief mentioned above when you have an admit in your hand already.
Depends on the school and the major. Also true about scholarships. Research your schools.
EA rates may be higher because everyone applying EA has their act together enough to apply by Nov. 1, which may make for a better overall pool. And they may be applying more often to schools they are really interested in and committed to, which helps.
EA rates will also include recruited athletes, development cases and a high proportion of legacies, but for the most part, EA applicants usually are the ones that have got their act together and make for a better pool as @Wilson98 suggests. You might get an edge if the school uses demonstrated interest as a factor. You just need to research each school.
Yes, it could in some cases. We were told by one school that early action shows interest which is important to them. Other schools it may not matter as much. You can google common data set and the name of the schools you are interested in to see if interest is important. The common data sets also give acceptance rates and yield by gender, and other information you may find helpful.
I thought athletes had to go ED, not EA?
^There are schools that are EA only and do not offer ED, e.g. HYPS. Recruited athletes typically apply in the EA round for those schools.
Yes, but recruited athletes often have had pre-reads and their coaches have earmarked their allotted “spots” for athletes that they have recruited for their teams.