So, here is a question. If you apply ED to one school and EA to several schools (all legit applications - no restrictions or REA) and the ED school announces decision on Dec 15 and your two EAs announce Dec 14 & Dec 16. Will know about the Dec 14 admit/rejection? Will you know about the Dec 16 admit/rejection? Will your high school block the information somehow?
I meant to add, this is all assuming you get accepted to ED college.
If you get admitted to an ED school, you are expected to matriculate and withdraw all other applications. However, that does not prevent other schools you applied to (whether EA, RD, rolling, or any other application schedule) from notifying you earlier than the ED school does (sometimes decisions are given months in advance of the promised decision deadline).
Admissions decisions don’t go through your HS - they come directly to you via email or you logging in to the portal.
DD applied ED to a private school and EA to three schools (two public and one private). The ED decision came out on a Friday - she received her decision from one of the EA public schools a few hours beforehand and from the second one the next day I think - before she had a chance to rescind her application. She did have to rescind her EA application to the private school before their decision came out because it would be several months later.
YOU, not your high school gets admissions info. In fact, high schools usually have no idea whether a student is accepted or not until told by someone the student told. Some exceptions, but systematically, the admissions decisions go directly to the student.
It all depends upon the timing of the notifications and how fast you act upon your ED acceptances that will determine whether you EA or rolling schools will get their decision to you before you notify them of your ED acceptance to be removed from consideration from those other schools.
In my student’s case, the ED notification came last, so, all EA results were in by then. It is possible to get your ED result, and notify the other schools so that you do not get notification of their decisions.
I have known students who got out their RD and rolling apps out at the same time as their ED and EA ones, and notified some schools in that mix that they were no longer in the running before admissions decisions were made.
In your case, it looks like the time line is tight enough that you’ll get your EA decisions before you get out your notifications of withdrawal of consideration. Things don’t work that quickly most of the time so that even if you let a school know you are out of play, things are already in the roll and you get notification of accept, defer or reject because it was already in process.
You don’t have to pull your other apps immediately upon the ED acceptance…all schools don’t even give a financial aid offer on the same day as the acceptance. Typically you have 2-3 weeks to accept the ED offer, make sure finances work out, and pay your deposit…if other EA or rolling acceptances come in during that window it’s ok.
Once you accept the ED offer/pay the deposit is the point where you will have to withdraw all other applications, as well as decline any other offers of admission.