<p>Is it a waste of time to apply early decision for my reach school? I feel like I'll just be thrown into the regular applicant pool anyway so why stress myself out doing it early, any credibility to my thoughts?</p>
<p>CBlaettler, why take that chance. You never know, you might get accepted. If you don't and get defered, apply RD would've been the same. If you get rejected - what makes you think you could've gotten in RD?</p>
<p>Apply ED if you the school if your ABSOLUTE top choice.</p>
<p>And if money isn't an issue.</p>
<p>But if the fact that you'd have to do the app a little earlier is your only qualm, I would definitely go for it.
For one, if you only apply RD and don't get in, you'll always wonder what might've happened ED.
And secondly, I would imagine that it would actually be less stressful, because it would force you to spread things about abit. If you get in, you may not have to complete other apps. Otherwise you'll be stuck doing all your apps in December, PLUS that one, while you may also be having school finals and who knows what.</p>
<p>If you have a clear first choice and the ability to compare FA packages is not an issue, why not go ED? Even if you get deferred to the RD round, you have the advantage of having expressed interest in the strongest way possible.</p>
<p>You might also want to do a little research about the school that you're interested in: at some colleges the advantage to applying ED is considerable, and others, it's really not that great. If you're looking at smaller schools, remember that recruited athletes tend overwhelmingly to apply ED. That can make it look like there's a huge advantage to applying ED (if the ED admit rate is much higher than RD) when, in fact, the advantage wasn't coming from applying early.</p>