Georgetown is my number one but Im confused on whether or not to apply EA or RD. Will EA increase my chances of admission or am I better off applying RD to have more time to work on the essays? Please list the pros and cons of EA
bump
Pros: If you do get in early, you’ll have the acceptance in your back pocket by December and won’t have to wait until April to hear whether or not you got in. You also wouldn’t have to worry about getting into all your other RD schools. You’d be done. Basically, getting in EA would make your whole process a LOT less stressful.
Cons: It’s great if you get in, but most people still don’t get in EA and are deferred to RD. Applying early gives you less time to focus on the application itself, including essays but also including standardized testing (Georgetown wants 3 SAT subject tests which is difficult for a lot of people to meet by the November deadline.) Georgetown also happens to be one of the only schools with a lower EA acceptance rate than RD, so it won’t increase your chances to get in. Finally, if you didn’t do as well as you wanted junior year, senior fall gives you an opportunity to try to improve your grades (which colleges can’t see if you apply early.)
In short, there are pros and cons to both. If you have all your testing figured out and are confident in your essays, apply EA. If you don’t feel fully ready in any way to apply in November, then don’t. It depends on you, personally, in the end.