<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am applying to Rochester and it gives me an option to select Early Decision II (1st of january). I realize that this would be binding, but does it also increase your chance of admission/ and chance at scholarships? (even though the deadline is 1st of January?)</p>
<p>Holmes,</p>
<p>Selecting Early Decision II puts you in relatively similar applicant standing as someone who applied Early Decision I. Most of the things you’ve heard about ED I (give or take some urban legend) carry over to ED II. </p>
<p>Statistically speaking, more ED applicants are accepted to their schools than RD applicants, but some of this discrepancy is because the ED pool is “more competitive”. A nice rule of thumb is as follows: If you would get in RD, you’ll definitely get in early, but the inverse is a bit more complicated. </p>
<p>Scholarships are more ambiguous. The admissions departments will SWEAR to you that financial aid - both need based and merit based - will not be impacted by your decision to apply ED. For the economically minded applicants, this explanation struggles to hold water: why would they give you as much money if they know you are in the bag? This part of the process requires faith. Trust the UofR people to work their magic and make you happy to have applied ED, but also investigate the financial aid calculators online through various sources. Find your estimated need, and imagine if you were awarded 5k less per year than that. Would you still be able to attend? If not, you might want to wait to see all aid packages before binding anywhere.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>