Early decision/action

Parents Forum
21

<p>davh01, you didn't read the next sentence:

[quote]
Early Decision is reserved for applicants who have not applied to any other Early Decision or Early Action programs (Ivy League or non-Ivy League institutions).

[/quote]

[url=<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/applyingtobrown/earlydecision.html%5DBrown"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/applyingtobrown/earlydecision.html]Brown&lt;/a> Admission: Regular & Early Decision<a href="emphasis%20added">/url</a>
The sentence you quoted refers to any Regular Decision applications that have been submitted prior to receiving the ED decision.</p>

22

<p>Brown is the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of ED colleges don't care if you apply EA elsewhere simultaneously. (I say "vast majority" because I don't know the universe. But Brown is the only college that I know of with that specific ED policy.)</p>

<p>Similarly, Georgetown is the outlier in the EA world. Most of the EA colleges do not restrict applicants from applying ED somewhere simultaneously. Except, of course, Yale and Stanford, both of which forbid their EA applicants from applying EA or ED anywhere else. But Yale now permits ED applications where an ED application is required for scholarship consideration and the decision is not made before January 1 -- something that seems directed at some LAC programs that really aren't competitive with Yale. I don't know about Stanford in that regard. And both Yale and Stanford allow simultaneous rolling-admission applications.</p>

<p>All of the following are very common strategies, depending on the student and what he or she wants:</p>

<p>-- Apply ED to one college and EA to one or two (or more) others
-- Apply EA to four or five colleges simultaneously
-- Apply SCEA to Yale or Stanford and put an early rolling-admissions application in to their state flagship, or a good out-of-state public like Michigan, Wisconsin, or Penn State that offers rolling admissions</p>

<p>There is also something called ED II at some colleges (mostly LACs), where you can apply in December after the first round of ED/EA results come out, and get a decision in February. As with ED, if you apply ED II and are accepted, you are committed to enroll at that college. But that can be a good option if you get disappointing results from your EA or ED reaches, or if you don't have it together to apply ED or EA by the end of October. Provided of course that you really want to attend the particular college.</p>

<p>Finally, no thread about ED or EA would be complete without this warning: If you are accepted ED, you are required to enroll even if you find the college's financial aid package disappointing. That's the main reason most students DON'T apply ED: they don't feel rich enough to forgo the opportunity to compare financial aid offers from different institutions. EA colleges attract many more EA applications than the ED applications ED colleges get. EA is a better deal for students.</p>

<p>Many posters here will tell you categorically not to consider applying anywhere ED if you need financial aid. I don't think that's absolutely correct -- some ED colleges have pretty predictable financial aid policies, especially if the family doesn't have the kind of funky assets or situation that makes analyzing its resources hard. If you have done your homework, applying ED can make sense. But certainly true that no one who is sensitive to how much aid he or she gets should be applying anywhere ED without having done a LOT of homework.</p>

23

<p>I'd just throw in I'm assuming you've visited the school you're considering applying ED to and it is unequivocally your first choice. It's not because it's the biggest reach for you, is it? ED should <em>only</em> be for the <em>one</em> school you REALLY REALLY want to go to after doing your due diligence. O/w go RD.</p>

24

<p>I actually think that everyone is wrong about this.</p>

<p>EA is nonbinding, true. You can apply to multiple schools EA, true.</p>

<p>But ED is a one-choice thing and so I wouldn't risk applying to other schools EA if you have an ED school. </p>

<p>Why: Once you're admitted somewhere, your name comes up as an "accepted student" there. So if you're accepted at an EA school, and your ED is deciding whether or not to admit you, they can find out that you've already been accepted somewhere else. That is a violation of the ED contract. You've just killed your chances at the ED school and maybe even the EA, if they're contacted about it and they figure out that you broke your word with another school. You're suddenly a much less attractive student.</p>

<p>Your options:</p>

<p>One ED school, or multiple EA schools. Don't mix and match.</p>

25

<p>^ That is completely wrong. With the exception of Brown, your obligation at ED schools is to enroll if accepted, and to withdraw all other active applications if accepted. They don't care if you were accepted somewhere else, as long as it's not ED. ED isn't usually a "one-choice thing", it's a "first-choice thing".</p>

<p>And ED and other early options are generally mutually exclusive. If you are accepted at X College December 1, if X College is an ED school that would be an ED acceptance -- and therefore a major problem at any other college to which you applied ED -- and if X College is an EA school or rolling admissions school your ED college (other than Brown) wouldn't regard that as a violation of the ED agreement. And the admissions department would know the difference. So even if they checked -- which is unlikely -- there wouldn't be an issue unless you had really violated your ED agreement (which., unfortunately, some people do).</p>

<p>Theredsmiley, trust me: Thousands of students every year combine ED and EA and rolling admissions applications. Some of them get accepted at their ED colleges, others don't, but it doesn't have anything to do with whether they have been accepted anywhere else at the time of the ED decision. If someone has told you differently, it's folklore.</p>

26

<p>totally agree with JHS. My S was accepted to his ED school after being accepted by a great rolling admission school. There was no conflict or problem. The ED school specifically stated that a student could apply (and presumably be accepted at) other schools, as long as he turned them down if accepted ED.</p>

27

<p>hmm thanks</p>