To how many Early Action schools should you apply?

Applying to College
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College admissions can be overwhelming! It is great to be educated and informed about the process. But, pay attention to your kid and how much they want to talk about college/admissions, etc…it can be stressful for many kids.

Both Princeton Review and USNews have general admissions information pages (click on their names for the links).

There are two good books with profiles of several hundred colleges…Princeton Review and Fiske Guide. They will be at your library, and new versions come out each year in late summer.

There are also some good blogs to follow even if your kid isn’t necessarily targeting these schools. Most schools’ admission depts will have blogs, or twitter, or instagram, these are some popular blogs by industry leaders:

Rick Clark of Georgia Tech: Rick Clark – Georgia Tech Admission Blog

David Graves of UGA: Blog - UGA Undergraduate Admissions

UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/

MIT: Blogs | MIT Admissions

Common app has a good primer on using/completing the common app. Common app opens Aug 1, prior to senior year.
https://www.commonapp.org/apply/first-year-students

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Just a couple nuances to consider.

I personally think if you are an “unhooked” candidate applying to a general admission college, or to something equivalent like general admissions to the Arts and Science school at a university, and it doesn’t have rolling admissions, you typically do not NEED to apply early, understanding if you want scholarship consideration there may be a deadline for that.

The cases where slots might “fill up” are typically things like rolling admissions colleges, restricted majors, and specialty schools which admit first-years. Notably, in practice most of those are exceptions in some way to the “restricted” or “single choice” early action rules, and similarly usually are not barred by Early Decision. Meaning those schools are trying not to do anything to really prejudice you, although if your only early options are ED for a restricted major/school or REA/SCEA, you may have to decide which is your first choice–but that is obviously considered a “fair” choice.

Some people will also suggest in some cases, even at general admissions colleges/schools there can be de facto “slots” for things like people from a particularly small college student state, people who intend a particularly unpopular major whose department might be lobbying for a minimum number of admits, people who play a particular instrument, or so on. I personally think these sorts of informal “hooks” might exist sometimes, but I think it would logically be very rare, would not likely be a strong factor in admissions for non-binding early applicants (since there is not much yield advantage), and generally is probably something most people can kinda know doesn’t apply to them (like if you are an intended Biology or Econ major from New York or California with no special performing arts talent, you are probably safe to ignore this issue).

But this doesn’t mean it is BAD to apply more places early. Still, there are some obvious temptations, like maybe if things go well with one rolling admission place, you can cut out some other “likely”/“safety” applications entirely. Or, of course, if you get into your favorite ED/SCEA/REA, that may cut out many applications. And so on.

Also, this is very personal, but spacing your applications out a bit more can potentially allow you to give them each some real thought and care.

And our experienced college counselors give advice reflecting that. They want you to have a thoughtful plan, to not miss scholarship deadlines, to make sure you don’t do anything too prejudicial if you are targeting restricted majors/schools, and so on. But other than that, they also think you can have “enough” early applications if together they, say, allow you to get an early answer from one or two promising likelies, and possibly your favorite.

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I do think this is the sort of situation where having really good college counselors at your school is a rather “unfair” advantage in that it takes the pressure off the parents to figure out all these tactical issues, and they can focus instead on just helping their kids figure out what sorts of college situations they would be most excited about (which, to me, is the fun part).

That said, this is not rocket science, it is learnable by most parents if they have the time to learn. And actually, pretty quickly I think you get to the point where you have all the basics pretty well covered, and you further understand the school-specific stuff you need to look into (e.g., what early options does this school have, and are there any independent scholarship deadlines).

And then online discussions will still make it sound like you are missing a million tricks that will optimize outcomes, but I am very skeptical about most of those things actually mattering. Again, concrete, school-specific information (College A has a scholarship deadline of December 1, Computer Science is not a restricted major at College B, and so on) could be valuable. But mostly, once you have the basic concepts down, I think you should be skeptical about additional generic strategic advice from parents adding much value.

And, of course, you can consider it if it sounds particularly relevant. I just would try to avoid the mindset that there is some secret formula for success that only some parents have figured out. There isn’t, there are just some good, well-known rules of thumb, and then a lot of school-specific information that will help you apply those practical rules to your specific case.

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I thought Georgetown’s early action was unrestricted? (or at least less restricted than the others). E.g., you could apply EA to MIT and Georgetown, but not MIT and Harvard.

In keeping with this principle, students applying under the Early Action program may not apply to any binding Early Decision programs since they then would not be free to choose Georgetown if admitted. Students are, however, allowed to apply to other Early Action or other Regular Decision programs while simultaneously applying to Georgetown’s Early Action program.

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Unfortunately this is based on your opinion, and not fact. It is not responsible to make a blanket statement saying one ‘typically does not need to apply early’.

There are plenty of schools that admit a significant proportion of their classes in early action like Purdue, UIUC, Auburn, Tulane, Northeastern, Villanova, and U Maryland. There are more schools on that list, and its important that families understand the process at every single school on their list.

The industry accepted guidance is that most students should apply EA (if the school offers it) wherever they can. There may be exceptions for students who would benefit from showing strong first semester grades, but even that is a gray area…it’s difficult to handicap chances in EA with perhaps a lower GPA or downward trend, and compare those chances to RD with a higher GPA or upward trend. Waiting until RD often means a reduced chance of admission at some schools (some schools say exactly that), especially the ones I mentioned above.

Again, applicants must understand the situation at every school on their list, and many students do not have adequate access to college counselors to help them. It’s great that you do, but not applicable to most because on average the counselor:student ratio in US HSs is around 480 to 1.

You do raise an important issue and this is one of getting an early answer. Many EA schools, as contrasted with rolling admission schools like Pitt and ASU, do not release EA admission decisions until after RD deadlines. Again, something to manage and chart out.

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I agree less restrictive than others, but it is still considered restrictive because ED is not allowed.

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I think that rule about not applying anywhere else ED makes it a form of restricted EA, but I agree that is weaker than some other REA schools which further don’t want you to apply even non-binding EA to other private colleges.

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That is correct (hence, "I personally think . . . ").

In this case, my opinion is based on what I have heard from our experienced college counselors, other people with actual knowledge of admissions decision-making like current or former admissions officers, and a few dives into available data from some schools.

But there can never be a “fact” about something like this, because it isn’t a factual thing at all, it is what I would call a heuristic, or a rule of thumb.

Absolutely. Ultimately these rules of thumb are only a starting point, and the OP should not feel like there is some “fact” about what they need to do. Their goal should be to understand the basic issues, and understand schools vary a lot in their policies and practices, and then investigate specific schools to figure out what makes sense in their particular case.

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If we had specifics to this student, then yes we can individualize to this student - that’s my point. So that we can help the parent prioritize.

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I don’t think they have specifics yet. Sounds like they are just trying to educate themselves on the entire college process.

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This correct. We are early in the process and I am just trying to educate myself on all of the facets of the process.

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You are ahead of the game and you will soon feel very well-informed about all the facets of college admissions if you stay around the forum at all.

As you are trying to educate yourself on the process, I cannot urge you strongly enough to start looking for safeties first. By safeties, I mean schools that your child would be happy to attend, is extremely likely to be admitted to, and would be affordable for your family without loans. Too often families start their college search by visiting and researching the reaches, and that’s the easy part. Nobody needs to apply to schools that are matches, targets, or reaches. Everyone needs to apply to one or more safeties, and too often it’s an afterthought and we then have posts from unhappy seniors because they have to go to their safety and they never thought they’d actually have to attend there.

Additionally, to give your child a sense of scale, you may want to visit small, medium, and large campuses that are either near to where you live or where you’re vacationing, so they can have a better sense of what size school they think they may prefer.

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This is really critical advice. What we would call a “bottom up” approach can make this process so much more fun and exciting, and make your kid feel like a winner no matter what great college they end up attending–which of course is exactly right.

Your application schedule will then very, very likely emerge naturally from such a process.

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Op- you are not behind.

But there is one HUGE thing you can do right now- even if you feel it’s way too early (it’s not) which is to schedule a full “financial physical” where you and your spouse (if you have one) go through your finances with a fine tooth comb. Tax returns, credit card bills, check book…

It is not too early to figure out what your college budget is likely to be, and you will save a ton of time, stress, and parent/child harmony by identifying which schools will not be affordable even assuming a best case scenario regarding need-based aid and/or merit scholarships.

I have seen a dozen cases in real life where Parent A thinks “Sure we can cut back to make little Tommy’s dream come true and attend Unaffordable U” and Parent B knows that “cutting back” would mean eliminating food and health insurance. Or Parent B is prepared to take out a home equity loan-- and Parent A knows from gossip in the neighborhood that the house is likely under-water since the last few sales have been below what their owners have paid for them.

Get on the same page! How much do you have in savings or investments- and can you afford to spend any of that on college? What are your recurring expenses and what are your “we can do without if we have to” expenses? What other big ticket items are coming up in the next three years- a car on its last legs now? A 25 year old heating system for the house which had a 15 year warranty?

It’s painful and it’s not fun. But once you are ready to explore actual colleges (the fun part) it will help tremendously if you don’t waste time on the places that you can’t afford. Financial aid is complicated so I won’t bore you with too much detail, but a good first step is understanding YOUR finances before you launch into the land of acronyms (FAFSA, NPC, etc).

I know a lot of kids who left their college in 2009 and 2010. Parents who lost jobs during the financial crisis, parents who lost their homes, whose retirement savings were wiped out. Hopefully this is a “once in a generation” type of of event. But the “regular” event- the day in, day out of “my kid is in love with a college we can’t afford. Do I bite the bullet and hope we can make it work?” is something that all the old timers on CC know very well and we try to prevent it when we can!

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Exactly. This is very important.

You will want to be somewhere between “realistic” and “quite cautious” when you figure out what your budget is. Sometimes parents have either job surprises or health surprises. You do not want your child’s education to be adversely impacted if this happens. Also, if you have multiple children, at least our approach was to make sure that anything that we told our oldest was affordable would set a precedent and the equivalent would be affordable for our younger child.

Then your child should know what the budget limit is. If they get accepted to a school that is just not affordable, then they should know before the entire process starts what “not affordable” means so that they are not shocked when they discover that they cannot afford to attend a particular school. I might add that neither daughter went to their lowest cost option. However they both were able to find a very good university that was a good fit for them and that fit the budget.

We (mostly I) told our kids a little white lie. We set a budget that would not have been a disaster if university had gone for 5 years instead of 4. Taking an extra year is not all that unusual.

Regarding your original question, as far as I can recall we applied EA whenever it was available. Our daughters (particularly our younger daughter) also applied to some schools with rolling admissions. When the acceptances came back the deadline for letting the schools know was the same as for RD admissions. This did mean that in some cases our daughters were waiting with some acceptances for quite a while before hearing back from everywhere.

One advantage of getting a few acceptances early is that it can take some of the pressure off of the process. Another advantage is that it can give you time to visit some schools after the acceptances have already come in. If your child is looking at an acceptance letter and the school is affordable, then they know that they really can be here in September if they want to. This makes the process very real.

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In general, when early action is possible, it is best to apply early action, because some colleges or their popular majors fill up during early action, making regular decision later much more selective. Some schools preferentially or exclusively award some or all of their merit scholarships to early applicants.

The same goes for rolling admission colleges – apply as early as possible.

It only gets complicated if you have a restrictive early action school where applying early action there means agreeing not to apply early action to at least some of the other schools where you could apply early action. In that case, you need to choose between applying early to the restrictive early action school or applying early to the schools that would be excluded if you applied early to the restrictive early action school.

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Two examples of general admission to non-specialty schools that are mentioned on these forums are University of Maryland - College Park and Purdue University - West Lafayette. The general thought is that they fill up in early action, so any regular decision application is automatically a reach.

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It is restricted only in that the Georgetown EA applicant agrees not to apply binding ED anywhere. But it does not have any restrictions against other EA applications like some other restrictive EA schools do.

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The other advantage about applying early action (and early rolling) as much as possible is that getting an early admission to a college that is affordable turns it into a safety. If that admission (and financial aid / scholarship if needed) decision comes while some other applications have not been submitted, then it is possible to drop applications to schools that are less desirable under all circumstances than the school that is now a safety.

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People should apply to colleges they actually have an interest in attending. They shouldn’t apply to every school on a “list” that may not reflect the environment they want to be in for four years.

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