<p>Is there a better chance for admissions with early action? Is there a better chance for financial aid with early action? Thanks!</p>
<p>EA may be slightly advantageous in admissions, but it probably won’t affect FA. The biggest advantage to EA is knowing earlier and having more time to pick, plan, budget, or even apply to more schools if you’re not satisfied with your admissions.</p>
<p>^^^^ This. Early Action may help, but almost never can hurt. The first EA school you get into also takes a lot of pressure off even if it’s a safety school. (you know you’re going somewhere!!)</p>
<p>I would think the biggest negative is that it could be a much more competitive applicant pool. </p>
<p>i’m debating whether I should apply EA to my 1st choice schools but i’m afraid it will be more competitive than the regular pool.</p>
<p>but most colleges tend to have a higher acceptance rate for early action applicants. like when i was doing college research i stumbled upon a chart that showed all the colleges acceptance rates and the differences between ea and regular. the difference is quite large actually. </p>
<p>Johns Hopkins University has an acceptance rate of 50% for early decision and they have a 20% acceptance rate for regular</p>
<p>I think Hopkins is now at 38% for ED and around 16% for regular. It hasn’t been 50% for 3 years running now, maybe? But what a lot of people don’t get is how deceptive the EA and ED acceptance rates are. It’s not simply 20% vs. 50% meaning you have more than double the chance. You have to remember a lot of recruited athletes and commits (and usually legacies at the behest of the schools or parents) apply early skewing the numbers. Since you probably won’t have the benefits these people have, you will be compared to a different pool. For you, it might mean the difference between a waitlist and an acceptance. But unlikely the difference between a rejection and acceptance. You still need to be really qualified.</p>
<p>Also, a lot of EA/ED schools (not all) have three possible outcomes – Accepted, Rejected or Deferred to the RD pool. In those cases, I think there is almost no downside.</p>