<p>I'm sort of confused about the whole early action/early decision. What is the difference between the two? Are your chances of getting in harder than regular action? What is the advantage of early decision/action besides finding out early?</p>
<p>Early Decision: Binding, if you get accepted, you have to go unless you can’t pay for it because they didn’t give you enough aid. You can only apply to one ED school. If you apply ED somewhere, you can apply EA elsewhere as well. If you get accepted ED and accept, you have to withdraw all other application you have sent.</p>
<p>Pros- Naturally increases your chances
Cons- Binding, make sure this is your first choice college and you have a good chance to get in if you decide to ED.</p>
<p>Early Action: Just an early application process. You can apply EA to as many places as you want that allow EA, and apply to one ED place even if you apply EA to multiple places. The decision isn’t binding (if you get accepted, you can still choose not to go). Most people I know do this to their safeties because it gives them confidence to get a couple acceptance letters early. </p>
<p>Pros- You get your decision early
Cons- You are judged the same or slightly harder than regular applicants.</p>
<p>Early Action - Restrictive : At some schools, they have EA restrictive (Princeton and Harvard to name a couple), this means you cannot apply ED or EA anywhere else. The decision isn’t binding though.
Pros- None really
Cons- The schools that do this are really hard to get into anyways, and it really is a waste of time to EA-Restrictive because it doesn’t raise your chances and you will often be deferred or rejected anyways, so it is a waste of the early application opportunity,</p>
<p>Why does early decision naturally increase your chances?</p>
<p>And for early action, basically the only advantage is to find out earlier? </p>
<p>Also, (sorry for all the questions) suppose I were to apply early DECISION to Princeton. Would I be able to apply early action at any other schools? If I applied early decision to Yale would it increase or decrease my chances at all?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>bumppppppp</p>
<p>Early decision usually has a higher rate of acceptance than regular decision. The same is also usually true for early action. I was accepted EA Georgetown and I think the percentage will be higher than regular decision. However, some schools’ EA possibly lower your chances even if there is a higher acceptance rate. I chose not to do EA Stanford because lots of athletes, legacies, and extremely strong applicants apply during the same period.</p>
<p>Btw Yale does not have early decision (I don’t think)</p>
<p>Oh okay. You said that some school’s EA possibly will lower your chances, is this true for ED as well?</p>
<p>I’d say ED gives you a boost no matter what. I think EA usually does too but I’m just not sure how much because of the extremely competitive pool.</p>
<p>If you know you’re a strong applicant, go ahead and do EA because the worst that could happen is you getting deferred to regular decision.</p>