<p>I was wondering, what's the difference between, early admission, early acceptance, early action, and early decision? some of those are probably just nicknames for the other ones, but what's the difference and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Thanks.</p>
<p>ED--if accepted to the school you apply to ED, you must cancel/withdraw applications to all other schools. I believe you can only apply to one school ED because of this rule, but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>EA--accepted early, generally same time as ED applicants but it is NOT binding. Can apply to as many schools EA as you would like, unless one of those schools is Single Choice Early Action (SCEA), in that case you can only apply to THAT school EA.</p>
<p>Cards4Life is correct. Given the binding nature of ED you can only submit one ED application.</p>
<p>Also remember that once you've applied and been accepted ED the colleges don't have much incentive to lure you to the school with merit aid (if they offer it). If you want to compare financial aid offers, don't go ED.</p>
<p>"Early admission" generally means admissions to the school after your junior year in high school, so that you skip senior year. "Early acceptance" is what the students call it when they've been admitted under any of the Early plans.</p>
<p>So, does applying ED to your #1 school give you a better chance at being accepted than if you were to apply EA? And does applying EA give you a better chance at acceptance to your #2 and 3 school than applying the regular way?</p>
<p>In general, both EA and ED have higher admission rates (the major claim by colleges for this is that the academic strength of early applicants is greater); however, not many schools offer both plans. You cannot do any other early admissions (ED or EA) if you apply ED anywhere; even some EA plans are restrictive like this, though the majority arn't. So if you were implying that you plan to do ED to your 1st choice and EA to your next top choices.. well, you can stop right there. :)</p>
<p>You can apply ED to school A and apply EA to schools B, C, D, etc. in case you don't get into or get deferred at A.</p>
<p>Cards4Life your post contradicts kryptonsa36's. If I apply ED at one school, can I or can't I apply EA at some others?</p>
<p>You can. Many of my friends did this, and many posters here on CC do it.</p>
<p>You can apply ED to one and EA to "some" others. However, some schools, such as Yale restricts EA only to their school (you can't apply EA or ED anywhere else. Georgetown, won't let you apply there EA if you've applied ED elsewhere, but you can apply to as many EA schools as you want. Check the websites of the schools you're interested in to verify their rules.</p>