Harvard's EA Policy - Confusion Never Stops

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>"Students applying to Harvard under the Early Action program are not permitted to apply early elsewhere in the fall under Single Choice Early Action or Early Decision programs. Harvard will rescind any offer of admission to a student who does so.</p>

<p>Students are allowed to apply in the fall to public institutions under rolling or other non-binding programs, and they may apply to colleges under Interim Decision programs, that inform applicants of admission after January 1. They may also apply to any institution under its Regular Action program and to foreign colleges and universities on any application schedule.</p>

<p>After students receive notification from Harvard's Early Action program (around December 15), they are free to apply to any institution under any plan, including binding programs such as Early Decision II.</p>

<p>Students admitted under an Early Decision program at another college must withdraw any pending application to Harvard and are not eligible for admission."</p>

<p>University of Chicago has an EA program, not a SCEA one. The first paragraph sounds like one can apply to both i.e. Harvard and UChicago EA. The second one doesn't agree. I've seen another topic on the same issue, but now I am confused again.</p>

<p>Any helpful reasoning to fully clarify things?</p>

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<p>There is nothing really confusing about it. You cannot apply to EA at UChicago if you apply for EA at Harvard.
On the other hand, you can apply for EA at multiple non-SC EA schools. Many students who apply EA to MIT also apply EA to Caltech :-).</p>

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<p>Harvard clarifies its EA Policy by Q&A

[Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Early Action](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/early.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/early.html)</p>

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<p>Smacking - you did not quote Harvard’s website correctly. Harvard actually says

</p>

<p>I’m not sure how much clearer it could be.</p>

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<p>@Hat: My quote is from the Harvard Supplement on the CA website. Hence the confusion.</p>

<p>Thanks DrGoogle. That certainly is straightforward enough.</p>

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<p>Harvard has changed the description of its EA program twice in the past couple of weeks. Before the first change, it indeed suggested that it might be permissible to apply to Chicago and Harvard EA simultaneously, although there was lots of ambiguity. They changed that, but then made it look like no one could apply to public universities with EA programs, which wasn’t their intent. </p>

<p>The current Q&A resolves all the ambiguities. But the Common App supplement language may still be what was on Harvard’s website until a few weeks ago, and that absolutely was ambiguous on this issue.</p>

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<p>Thanks for clearing this up JHS.</p>