<p>For me this is pretty easy. All my kids can control is their behavior. If they get in EA (or rolling admissions early) they have two choices about the other schools to which they applied and that they now know there is NO chance they will attend.</p>
<p>1) They can keep their application live … know their application is absolutely alive in the application pool of these schools they will not attend.</p>
<p>2) They can inform these schools are no longer admitted … they have no control of how the schools handle this information … but by informing the school they no longer interested they have given the school a chance to update it’s applicant pool to remove their application … and their action MIGHT help someone else.</p>
<p>Or said another way … my kid can sit on their butt, do nothing, and know they did not do something that might help someone … or … they can spend about 1 minute to send an email to a school and maybe help out some fellow seniors. </p>
<p>Of course YMMV, in my family the discussion pretty much sounded like the last paragraph I just wrote … and I would be very disappointed if my kids were not willing to spend 1 minute to possibly help out other applicants.</p>