<p>Hello everyone. I applied to my first choice college a few weeks ago, and made the early action deadline just in time. I am now anxiously awaiting the decision. My question is was it better of me (as a fairly average student) to apply early action than to apply regular decision?</p>
<p>Where did you apply?</p>
<p>Illinois Wesleyan. Their early action is non binding, but does me applying via early action show them I’m serious about going there? Simply put, I’m a fairly average student. I have good grades, but I’m also in pretty normal classes. No AP or honors this year. A few activities throughout high school, but no sports. I did write a solid essay though, and I’m pretty sure my high school counselor gave me a good recommendation. I’m not trying to turn this into a chance thread, just giving some backround.</p>
<p>I think the general consensus is the early programs show that you have an interest in schools so it’s good for any student…</p>
<p>^Not quite. In general, early action can mean this, but also that you’d like a decision earlier (and maybe thus be able to apply to other “reach” schools). Early action is usually just as difficult to get into because of a more competitive applicant pool, and could even hurt your chances if you are depending on your first semester senior year to help your application, whether it is for an improved SAT score, better overall GPA, awards, or even more time to work on your app.</p>
<p>This is all helpful information. In the event that I get denied, can I apply again for the regular decision?</p>
<p>If you get denied, you aren’t considered for regular admissions. If you’re deferred, then you are considered for regular decision and you don’t have to apply again.</p>
<p>That makes me even more nervous!! This is like my dream college.</p>
<p>I have a theory about this question, which is really based on kind of crude economic thinking.</p>
<p>Early Decision gives colleges an incentive to admit students that they think they’d like to have. They know that student will enroll. That’s good for their yield. They could defer this student, and roll the dice to see whether they’ll find somebody that they like even more in the RD pool, but if they do that, they have no guarantee that either the deferred student or the theoretically better student (who may not even exist) will enroll there. Since colleges like to have high yield numbers, they have good reason to accept a student who will definitely come, as long as that student meets their standards.</p>
<p>Early Action, on the other hand, offers colleges no incentive to take an EA applicant. If anything, there’s a disincentive for colleges to admit EA applicants. The admitted students may or may not enroll, and the college won’t know until May 1, but the college committed a spot in the entering class to that student, and therefore can’t offer that spot to an RD applicant, even if they find someone in the RD pool who’s better than the admitted EA applicant. The college doesn’t have that slot for the RD pool, which is bad, but it also doesn’t have a student committed to enroll, which would compensate for the loss of the slot. For the college, there’s only downside, no upside.</p>
<p>I believe people who follow the data will tell you an enormous fraction of generally qualified EA applicants are deferred. I believe this is why.</p>
<p>So basically if I have any chance at all, I’ll be deferred? Is there anything I can do at this point to help my odds? I am really nervous now.</p>
<p>I didn’t quite say that. You could be admitted. </p>
<p>And if you are deferred, that’s really not so bad, except for having to wait for the college’s eventual decision. Deferred EA applicants usually do at least as well in the RD pool as RD applicants do. But whether that’s because EA confers some kind of benefit, or because EA applicants tend to be a little stronger than RD applicants is, as far as I know, an open question.</p>
<p>I should add, I know absolutely nothing about how it works at Illinois Wesleyan in particular.</p>
<p>But I wish you good luck.</p>
<p>Sikorsky-
Nice theory, makes sense to me.</p>
<p>I can’t claim credit. It was Mrs. Sikorsky who put me onto it.</p>
<p>Thanks Sikorsky. Though it’s not quite what I wanted to hear, it still leaves some hope. So essentially, if Illinois Wesleyan has any interest in me, I’ll be deferred. However, deferred is still better than denied in my book.</p>
<p>Some colleges (the only example I can think of is University of Georgia) defer <em>many</em> of their Early Action applicants, because they don’t require them to submit essays if they apply EA. This allows them to accept only the students with good numbers and to request more information (in the form of an essay) from the students who weren’t quite up to par. If a college requires more or less from it’s EA vs. RD applicants, this will very likely effect the rate of straight-up acceptances. (A deferred student told me the rate of EA acceptance for University of Georgia was something like 13%! I can’t confirm this though.)</p>
<p>I don’t believe that Illinois Wesleyan is one of these schools because they allow the use of the Common App and the Universal College App (it might be difficult to have different requirements based on deadlines with these forms), but this factor is something to consider before making generalizations about EA admission.</p>
<p>As far as your question goes, I would say Early Action was better, because you will probably get your admission decision sooner, even though notification is rolling. And because you seem to be stressing, this might be a good thing.</p>
<p>Wait, BREAKING NEWS!!! Check out what U.S. News & World Report says about their admission rates:</p>
<p>“[Illinois Wesleyan] is more selective, with an acceptance rate of 61.9 percent and an early acceptance rate of 93.1 percent.” ([Illinois</a> Wesleyan University | Applying | Best College | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/illinois-wesleyan-university-1696/applying]Illinois”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/illinois-wesleyan-university-1696/applying)) </p>
<p>That gives you REALLY good odds. (By the way, I found that with a simple Google search - sometimes a search engine is better than a bunch of opinions from speculators like us!)</p>
<p>Well that eases my stress a little bit. My guess would be that they don’t deny many early action applicants right off the bat. That 6.9% probably gets deferred. I guess I just need to cool my jets and hope for the best. Thanks though, it’s a confidence booster.</p>
<p>Sorry OP, this does not pertain specifically to your situation, but to the subject of EA.</p>
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<p>To prevent this from happening, AVERAGE competitive candidates aren’t selected during the EA round (at least for highly selective schools like HYPS). Although acceptance rates may be slightly higher for EA, the beneficiaries of these higher rates are only the most OUTSTANDING applicants, ones who would be chosen from ANY applicant pool. See what Y says:</p>
<p>[Early</a> admit rate rises slightly | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/]Early”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/)</p>
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<p>The rest of the GOOD candidates are deferred to the RD round where they can be compared within the larger RD pool.</p>
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<p>If there were no upside, schools wouldn’t do EA. For the highly selective colleges, EA gives them several months to woo students who will likely be accepted to other top colleges in the RD round if they choose to apply.</p>
<p>So was it of any harm that I applied early then? Does anybody who actually goes to IWU have any opinion?</p>
<p>No, I don’t see how it can have been harmful. If they reject you EA (and I hope they don’t), then they would have rejected you RD. And I think applying EA still shows interest to colleges that care about applicants’ demonstrated interest. Which IWU does.</p>
<p>Man I wish I started the research and stuff sooner, because I definitely would have applied early decision to this college if I had known how much I would love it. Do you think there’s any other way to indicate that I’m really interested in this college (and will attend if accepted)?</p>