<p>I am new to this board, so this question may have been asked before. </p>
<p>My son is a junior in high school and has as his preferred schools Northwestern and the University of Chicago. I know that Northwestern has a binding early admissions policy, meaning that if they accept a student during the early admission period, then that student is bound to that school. Chicago, on the other hand, also has early admission but if accepted to their school in mid December, you have until March to decide if you want to attend. </p>
<p>My question is.....is a student limited to just one early admission school to apply to or can he/she apply to as many as he/she wishes, understanding that if the binding school accepts the student then that student must attend that school? Hope this is not too confusing to understand. Thanks!</p>
<p>You can only apply to one Early Decision school, but you can apply to as many Early Action plans as you like (in most instances). Northwestern is ED and Chicago is EA, I believe, so he can apply to both early if he chooses. Of course, if Northwestern accepts him, he is required to withdraw his application from Chicago (and any others he has submitted, early and regular decision).</p>
<p>Just make sure you double-check Chicago's policy on applying ED elsewhere, though. I didn't apply to Chicago and don't know their policy, but one school I applied to Early Action did not allow its applicants to apply EA if they had applied somewhere else ED.</p>
<p>Not quite. For example Stanford and Yale early actions (EA) are single choice early action (SCEA). You can only apply to one of them and no others. It is true there are many others without this limitation, but yo need to check as kper slamander's post. However, if the ED comes through, he is committed to go.</p>
<p>For this year's cycle you could apply ED to Northwestern and EA to UChicago; if accepted to both you would be committed to attend Northwestern and would have to decline UChicago's offer and withdraw any other applications. If your son decides to go this route, you should doublecheck this summer that both these schools' rules are the same for the upcoming admissions cycle (most likely they will be the same).</p>
<p>Also, go over to the Parents and Financial Aid forums to check up on the rules on financial aid and early decision. If there is any chance that money will be an issue for your family, forewarned is forearmed.</p>
<p>Remember that you CAN turn down a binding ED acceptance for financial reasons. Typically if you aren't given enough money and you're accepted ED they'll be glad to give you more, but if they can't or don't, then you can decline. It does prevent you from shopping around- you won't get the chance to consider other school's packages, but the ED choice has to give you a financially doable package.</p>
<p>(To be safe, I applied ED to a school that meets 100% of need. 100% of need schools are AMAZING, ED or not.)</p>
<p>Specifically addressing those two schools: yes you can apply to both. If accepted to both, you would be committed to matriculating at NU (unless they offer terrible financial aid in comparison to UChicago--regardless of the fact that NU is, generally speaking, much more generous that UofC--in which case you could probably slip out of the ED agreement)</p>
<p>Thanks for everyone's responses. You were able to clear this question up for us. We will double check with each school just to be sure the same rules apply for next year. Thanks again!</p>