What are the advantage and disadvantage of applying thru early decision and early action process?
As an international student which is advisable
(Early decision, Early Action and regular applications)
One advantage for both ED and EA is that it allows the student to finish early and if successfully accepted at their first choice school, cease further applications (saving on time and money).
One advantage for ED (to the schools that offer it) is that it tells them unequivocally that you are 100% committed to attending, if accepted. Colleges tend to view this favorably and may be more likely to admit an ED applicant vs. the similarly qualified applicant under Regular Decision (RD).
The disadvantage for ED is that if accepted, you’re obliged to withdraw all active applications, thus omitting any chance you have of comparing financial aid offers. ED is generally avoided by students who are counting on Fin Aid (ED applicants can certainly apply for Fin Aid – if the award amount is vastly different, there is some latitude for the accepted ED student to back away without further ramifications – however, this would occur past the normal RD deadlines and this causes issues for the applicant).
Some students skip ED and EA in order to use their first semester of their senior year to bulk up on GPA and test scores – in order to submit a stronger RD application. Or they just don’t want to rush their applications and would like the extra time.
ED and EA applicants can be rejected (and ineligible from applying again under RD), deferred (into the RD applicant pool) or accepted.
Thanks TE26E4. it’s helpful
Is it allowed to apply to several schools for EA? And what if I get early acceptance into 2 or 3 schools? What happens then?
@icecoldpepper11, the answer is YES if all of the schools offer non-restrictive early action. Most EA programs are like this, and if you’re accepted early action to multiple schools then you’re a big winner, since you’ll be able to punt on applying to lower ranked schools on your list and have 100% flexibility in deciding which school you’ll ultimately attend. Decision date: May 1.
It’s a bit different if one of the schools on your list is an early action program that is “restrictive” or “single choice.” Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College all fall into this category, and they all place constraints around where else you can apply if you apply REA to that school. For example, all of them prohibit you from applying ED to other schools simultaneously if you apply REA there, and HYPS also prohibit applying EA to any other private school. Best to read the policies for each REA school if they’re part of your plan.
You can check out this article for more detail:
https://www.college-kickstart.com/blog/item/the-early-admission-advantage
Good luck!
The major advantage for applying (especially to very selective colleges with ED) is that it improves your admissions chances to that college. While it’s very difficult to quantify the degree to which it improves your chances, anecdotal study suggests that the improvement is significant. The admission chances of improvement to colleges with EA is less, this too based on anecdotal review.
My sense is that applying ED/EA to “less” selective colleges is mostly a convenience in that you can reduce the number of applications should you get in. My opinion is that this convenience is over rated.