<p>^ That is correct. If FA is absolutely required, you need to think it through before submitting ED. However, you may find out the chance of getting FA at any school from the stat. Also, if you need to wait for the FA offer, you don’t need to withdraw other applications immediately. You can wait until you’ve received the FA offer, or the explicit deadline from the school (which is Jan 1 for Rice). If your financial need is not matched, you can withdraw your ED and keep pursuing the other schools. You can only do one ED (or SCEA), but you may apply to other schools that have no ED/EA at the same time. That is what they mean you can “initiate the application of other schools”. ED would give you a higher chance if your credential is near or above their expected admission average. Most ED applicants are better qualified than the RD ones which partly explains the higher admission rate. If a student still struggling to get a good test score in the Fall of Senior year, he/she is not likely to apply ED anyway. There is no reason for any top schools to admit students far below their expected admission stat average in the early round even that would mean 100% yield. Harvard has 82% yield overall anyway.</p>
<p>The “bindingness” of ED has discussed many times here before.
Search back for more info.</p>
<p>Whether ED provides an admission “advantage” or not is open to debate.</p>
<p>^ And none of these answers are the same for every school!</p>
<p>^ Very true. Particularly between top schools with high yield and good schools with moderate yield. The latter may be more eager to admit more ED.</p>