Going to be applying to colleges for CS this coming fall and had some questions on this early decision and action topic. I understand the basic difference between them, but what I’m wondering is if you can get deferred from both or just early action and also if you can reapply to a college if you get denied from early action etc. Also, are one’s chances to get into a college or at least deferred from early action / decision lower than just applying at a regular date? For good measure, I’ll be applying to unis like UIUC, northwestern, Carnegie, Cal tech, berkley, stanford, MIT, etc. (Also, I understand some of these don’t have either option).
In either case you may be admitted early, deferred to the regular round, or rejected early.
For ED, being admitted early comes with the attendance commitment if the financials work; other results release you from that commitment.
If you are rejected early, there is no point to applying again the same year even if that were allowed, since the college has decided the you would obviously (to them) be rejected even in comparison to regular round applicants.
Some colleges do admit a substantial percentage of their class early (leaving few slots open in the regular round), and ED is also an indicator of high level of interest that some colleges consider (restricted or single-choice EA is also such an indicator, but regular EA is a much weaker, if any, indicator).
So what I’m taking away from this is, besides being binding, there is no difficulty in admissions difference between EA and ED? Also, if I’m deferred, do I hold a disadvantage compared to ppl just applying only in the regular pool?
With ED, you’re committed to accept an offer and withdraw all other applications (unless you truly cannot afford the cost). With EA, there is no such commitment. That’s the main difference. If you choose to apply ED, then you use one and only one school’s ED option; all other applications must be EA or RD. You can submit more than one EA application (unless it’s the “Single Choice” EA program a few schools offer).
On paper, ED seems to boost admission chances compared to RD. Be aware, though, that you’re not necessarily comparing apples to apples across the two applicant pools. ED applicants tend to be have higher concentrations of recruited athletes, legacies, and high-income applicants. So the higher ED acceptance rates may be attributable, to some unknown degree, to those factors rather than to a preference for the ED commitment per se. The CDS, section C, compiles statistics on ED and RD applications and acceptances but does not break out these numbers for EA programs.
Early applicants can get accepted, rejected outright, or deferred to the RD round. If you’re rejected outright, that’s it, you don’t re-apply. If deferred, you’re rolled over into the RD pool and don’t need to do anything but wait .
Students who depend on heavy need-based aid usually are advised against ED (because if accepted, you cannot wait to compare FA offers). If EA is offered as an alternative to RD, then IMO there usually is no reason not to use the EA option (unless you’ve missed the deadline.) A school that gives you EA offer by mid-December can become your de facto safety school, eliminating the need to submit more applications to less selective colleges that you would not prefer to attend.
No, whether ED or EA compared to the regular round offers any advantage (and, if so, how much of an advantage it is) depends on the specific college (ED is more likely to offer an advantage, though, particularly for a college that considers level of applicant’s interest). Note also that most colleges offer only one of ED or EA, if they offer early admission programs at all.
@AviSaxena33 In most cases you can be deferred from EA/ED to the RD round (however a portion will be outright rejected), you have no advantage or disadvantage in the RD round if deferred. For EA there is essentially no advantage over the RD round. The EA statistics are misleading in that the acceptances are much higher in the EA round which is due to a number of factors (athletes, strength of applicant, etc.). The ED round does tend to give you a better chance due to the fact that if accepted you are committed if the finances work thus increasing the schools yield. Think of the ED round like this, many students look very similar (EC’s stats etc.), if applying ED you will beat out an RD applicant who is very similar to you. ED is most advantageous to an applicant who has a strong application but one that doesn’t stand out compared to all the other strong applications, if your application is somehow weak, ED won’t help you get in.
- Deferral: You can get deferred from either ED or EA. If you are deferred, it means you will be considered alongside the regular decision applicants.
A. If you applied ED, once they defer you, you are no longer bound to attend if accepted during the regular round. In fact, you may apply somewhere else in the ED 2 round if desired.
B. I don’t know if there are any formal statistics available on what happens to deferred applicants, but, from anecdotes on this site, it seems like a relatively small percentage are accepted later. But some students certainly are deferred then accepted! I imagine (very scientific, I know!) that if your grades were on a upward trend and they deferred you specifically to see how you do the first half of senior year, then a strong performance might help you. But if they deferred you to see how you compare to other applicants, then if one of the admissions officers is championing you, you might get in, but otherwise, they were kind of lukewarm about you in the first place and this may not change, although they may take your strong interest into account.
- Denial: If you are rejected outright in any round, ED/EA or Regular Decision, that's it. There is no appeal and no second chance.
- Advantage: by pure statistics, EA confers some advantage and ED confers more. You can look up the specific EA/ED/RD acceptance rates for your college. Often, they also will state how many are deferred. Some colleges defer a ton and reject few in the early round; others reject more and defer few.
@CU123 is correct. The bare stat’s often used (ED or EA admissions rate vs. RD rate) is entirely misleading. The ED/EA rounds are going to include almost all of the athletic recruits (in the case of Ivies, about 200, selective LAC’s 50-60+, development cases (children of super donors) and a disproportionate number of other strong hooks (legacy, faculty children, Questbridge early matches are also included I believe). So at the very least, when looking at ED/EA admission rates, you need to back out the AR’s and the special cases like the super donors in the numerator and the denominator. So if we look at Harvard’s class of 2012, the simple EA rate was 938/6473 or 14.5%. If we backed out 220 representing AR and other special cases, the rate drops to 11.5% (718/6253) vs Harvard’s RD rate of 3.4% (1118/33033 – this backs out the EA acceptances and applicants). There is an 8.1% gap but Harvard’s website specifically says,
“Harvard does not offer an advantage to students who apply early. Higher Early Action acceptance rates reflect the remarkable strength of Early Action pools. For any individual student, the final decision will be the same whether the student applies Early Action or Regular Decision.” @https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/apply/application-timeline/restrictive-early-action
So if you take Harvard at its word, the 8.1% difference is attributable to differences in pool strength.
Yale says the same thing:
“Applying Single-Choice Early Action does not increase the likelihood of being admitted to Yale. Historically, the rate of admission among early applicants has been higher than the overall admission rate because many of our strongest candidates, from a wide range of backgrounds and interests, apply early.” @https://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action.
Running similar calculations for Yale: EA rate = 17.1% (871/5086); adjusted for AR and special cases using 220, 13.4% (651/4866). RD rate = 5.0% (1401/27814) for a similar gap of 8.3% attributable to a better EA pool.
So, even when we look at ED rates after you adjust for AR’s and special cases, it would not be unfair to use a number around 8% to further adjust for the differences in strength of pool. The “double digit” advantage that people see is in most cases probably down to a low single digit advantage in a closer apples to apples comparison. So let’s take Brown which is ED, its numbers are ED adjusted for AR’s and special cases = 16.1% (475/2950) with a RD rate of 6.9%(2027/29554) for a gap of 9.2%. Assuming a 7-8% adjustment for strength of ED pool, yields only a 1-2% advantage.
I don’t doubt ED confers an advantage because colleges want to manage yield, class size and class makeup which is more effectively accomplished through ED, but applicants should not be under the misimpression that ED will boost an uncompetitive candidate into a competitive one.
What happens in ED round if financials don’t work out? Do you have to decline and move on? Or can you hold on to the acceptance and apply to other schools to compare FA packages?
You cannot hold onto the ED acceptance if the financials don’t work out. You lose the opportunity to compare finance packages from different colleges when you choose to apply ED. ED is not for everyone.
Do you have safeties on your list? None of those are a sure thing for CS for any student. The Common Data Set for each school shows overall acceptance rates, but does not break it down by College within the University. So, Engineering at UIUC is much more difficult to get into than Letters and Science. Also, for publics, the Common Data Set does not usually show the acceptance rate for instates vs. out of state students. For Engineering at Illinois as an out of state student, figure you need to be at least in the top 25% for stats for admitted students to be competitive – not a sure thing, but a credible applicant. If you have a couple of “sure things” and they have non-binding EA, then getting those applications completed early in order to get an acceptance in hand by mid December is very helpful. Many public schools require applications to be submitted mid-fall, often Nov 1 or Nov 15, to be eligible for merit scholarships, Honors programs etc.
As others have noted, ED is binding and you must (1) accept the offer and withdraw your applications from other schools, or (2) IF you have applied for financial aid AND the financial aid offer is not adequate, then you can decline the offer and that school is off your list. Your high school guidance officer must sign the ED application form, as do your parents. It is not something to take lightly. The higher acceptance rates for ED vs. the RD pool are not simply that it is “easier” to get in ED – rather, at many schools, if you are applying as the child of an alum, you are told that the “legacy” only gives your application a boost in the ED round, and many recruited athletes are expected/required to apply ED, and they have had their applications pre-read to make sure they are admissible. So for the “unhooked” applicant, the ED acceptance rate may be somewhat higher than the RD rate, but is not usually the apparent, dramatic increase one might think just comparing acceptance rates.
I am struggling a bit with this myself for S19. We really don’t want to apply anywhere ED. We want him to have choices and I really don’t think he will be ready to decide so early. Plus, even though we can afford full pay, we’d like to compare offers since all of the schools he will apply to have some sort of merit scholarship available. I am sure there are many families in this same situation.
He’s already found two safeties that he likes, but will also be applying to probably six other schools that offer merit to the most competitive students. He should end up in the top 25% of applicants for all of these schools when looking at GPA and standardized test scores. He’s got strong extra curriculars with leadership and will hopefully be able to stand out with his art portfolio too. The RD acceptance rates at this list of schools is around 25-30%. (They are all top 30 LACs.) I’m hoping that his application will be strong enough to survive the RD rounds. We are also going out of our way to “show interest” and visiting and interviewing. Fingers crossed that we are making the right decision about not choosing an ED school. I’m trying to stick with the thought that he would do well at any of the schools on his list.
Some schools such as UMiami required ED/EA applications for their largest scholarships, inviting those accepted students to come for early interviews.