Early Decision Duke & Notre Dame

Hello! I am currently a Junior and am looking at what colleges I will be applying for. I have a 1460 SAT, 4.3 weighted GPA, am enrolled in North Carolina School of Science and Math online courses, do plenty of other extra curriculars and live in North Carolina.
My main question is, should I apply Early Action Duke or not? Duke’s EA is binding and there are several other schools I’d like to apply to that don’t have binding Early Action. The problem is through, some of those EA schools like Notre Dame do not allow you to apply EA if you are applying EA at a binding school.

I could either apply to just Duke EA or not apply EA Duke and apply to Notre Dame and others like Yale EA.

I do have an advantage at Duke since I live in North Carolina and am associated with North Carolina School of Science an Math, but I’m not sure if it’s worth risking all my Early Action opportunities just for Duke EA or to spread out and apply to several EA’s where I don’t have the in state advantage.

Any advice?

You’d have to decide between Notre Dame EA and Yale SCEA - you cannot apply early to both.

Applying ED to Duke gives you a pretty decent advantage. Applying EA to most schools does not, including the only colleges that do not allow you to apply ED elsewhere (Georgetown and Notre Dame). SCEA at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford gives you a small advantage, but you cannot apply EA elsewhere except to public universities like Carolina.

You’ll have to decide whether you’d rather apply ED to Duke (where in-state residency and ED helps) or take your chances applying EA to Notre Dame or Georgetown or SCEA to one of HYPS. Are you sure you’d be happy at Duke? If not, ED may not be for you.

Thank you for the helpful points!

OP I know you didn’t mention Georgetown in your post.

But that would be one to take off the board unless it was your top choice based on your stated goals.

It has little or no benefit statistically than rd. It does allow you to learn earlier which is a benefit.

Moving on.

The question is where do you want to attend and what can you afford.

Ed restricts some flexibility in viewing competing offers. Although you can withdraw ed for financial reasons but why not think that through in advance.

ND and Duke, although each is outstanding, are different in many ways.

Do a tour of each and talk to the students outside of the guides.

If you said you were a ND legacy I would offer the same advice.

All things being equal, you can afford without question and you really want to attend. Use all the advantages you have in the ed and ea round.