<p>Some schools are binding and some schools aren’t. It’s beneficial if you know that a certain school is your top pick.</p>
<p>“Some ED would prohibit you from applying other EA too.”</p>
<p>Example? I haven’t heard of this, so we should get them on record.</p>
<p>“Some schools are binding and some schools aren’t.”</p>
<p>ED is always binding (except when too little financial aid is offered); EA is never binding.</p>
<p>I don’t know about ED schools that don’t allow you to apply EA to another school, but I know that some schools (ie. Georgetown) won’t allow you to apply EA to their school and ED to another school. </p>
<p>I don’t know why they do this but I assume it is because they don’t reject during EA, so they want to keep yield rates as high as possible and applicants who get into another school ED inhibit this.</p>
<p>@vonlost,
Someone said several years ago that Brown ED did not allow EA to other school:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/6406304-post4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/6406304-post4.html</a>
But the policy may have been changed recently according to their website now. That is exactly why I suggest people to check with each school’s current policy.</p>
<p>The only time you can not apply to another school EA is if the school in question has what is called EA restrictive (meaning you can only apply to one School EA). The difference is that it is not binding so you can still apply to other schools RD and decide when you see where you got in. One of the schools my son is applying to has EA restrictive or I would not have had a clue.
Also another reason not to apply ED or EA is if your like my son and had a so-so freshman and sophomore year (3.3) and a great junior year (4.3) and you want to have your senior year grades counted so they don’t think it was a fluke.</p>
<p>Having different deadlines for rolling, EA, and regular admissions helps to spread out the college application process, and it’s nice to get some (hopefully positive) decisions back before February 1.</p>
<p>Early action is never harmful. Early decision can be if you don’t actually want to go there or you change your mind or something. So for those kinds of thing you have to be careful. But EA is non-binding and just shows that you’re interested and are proactive enough to get things done early.</p>
<p>EA can be harmful if the school has a high rejection rate (e.g. Stanford). You would not have a chance to improve score.</p>
<p>Or other way around too. If your senior year first Sem score is a bit down, that is not a factor in EA, but could become a factor in RD.</p>
<p>^ If you know your first semester grade is not going to be good, you can always submit your application and transcript before the new grades officially appeared on the transcript. You don’t have to wait for the deadline for RD. Anyway, they will see your final grade at the end if you are accepted.</p>
<p>A few colleges offer restrictive EA while others offer open EA. If you really want to get into a particular college, I think you’d better join its EA pool :)</p>