<p>Can someone tell me the difference between early decision and early action as well as their implications?</p>
<p>Early decision is binding, so if you get accepted you have to go to the school and withdraw other applications. You also get notified earlier. Early action you also get notified earlier but it is non binding; you do not have to go to that school if you are accepted.</p>
<p>Is there any sort of financial aid involved?</p>
<p>Umm. I don’t think applying early decision/action gets you anymore, but you can get out of early decision because of financial issues.</p>
<p>There’s no extra financial aid for applying early decision. Only apply ED if you are absolutely positive it is the school for you.</p>
<p>There’s a spectrum of opinions on the matter of financial aid and early decision. (Naturally, I think my opinion is right, and people whose opinions are much different from mine are wrong.) It is true that you can be released from your early decision agreement with a university or college if they do not offer you sufficient financial aid. It’s less clear who gets to decide what constitutes “sufficient aid.” It frequently happens that a college and a student (or a student’s parents) have very different ideas of how much aid the student needs.</p>
<p>It is true, however, that if you’re shopping for financial aid offers, early decision greatly weakens your position. If financial aid matters, it’s much smarter, IMO, to apply regular decision so that you can compare aid packages from a number of colleges and universities. In addition, colleges have less incentive to try to buy your love if you’ve applied early decision. They know you’re strongly interested in them, and they know that if they want you, they can lock you in with the smallest possible offer that could be considered “sufficient aid.”</p>