Early Decision Question

Hello everyone! I am going to be a senior in high school, thus college applications are going to become priority.
I understand what the difference is between Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular; however I have a few questions in regards to those types of applications.

Firstly, what are the benefits and drawbacks of ED in comparison to RD? Please take into consideration of financial issues, GPA, and the pool if applicants that I will be competing against.

Secondly, my top schools that I want to attend are Vanderbilt and Duke University. Therefore, If I did ED to one of them and get accepted I would gladly attend. Duke’s ED is due Nov. 1st, and I will receive a response by December 15th. Vanderbilt has an ED2 option, which is due January 1st, and responses will be sent out by mid-February. I was wondering if I ED at Duke, and get either deferred, or rejected, could I ED2 at Vandy and not expect any problems or drawbacks?

As well as, do admission counselors treat ED1 and ED2 applicants differently at all?

I know it’s a lot to answer, but thank you so much for helping!

If you’ve run the Net Price Calculator and are comfortable with the numbers, and are not expecting to have a huge upward swing in test scores or GPA (i.e. your stats are as good as they are going to get), and if that really is your top choice school, applying to and getting accepted ED will save you money in application costs, and you can breathe easier (but not slack off) over the holidays and into 2nd semester.

Yes, if get deferred or rejected, you can apply elsewhere ED2.

Admissions officers treat ED 1 applicants a little differently as 1. Because it’s binding so it ups their yield and 2. Applying ED 1 clearly shows that they are your top choice.

ED 2 admit rates are basically the same as RD, not that much benefit.

Thank you! @rdeng2614 and @skieurope . I am also curious if there is a chance that applying ED is potentially worse than applying RD in terms of getting into a specific university? Suppose that you cannot raise your GPA. Would it be harder to get accepted by ED because it would be more competitive?

I’m not sure how this comes into play. ED decisions will be made on your current GPA; nobody is going to base a decision upon a GPA potentially increasing.

I can see acceptance rates at some universities being comparable for ED vs. RD when you back out the likes out recruited athletes applying early. I can’t think of a case where the ED acceptance rate is worse, but there probably is.