@SJ2727 There no ethical dilemma posed by having an EA and an ED application outstanding simultaneously. The dilemma is that the ED school is not the applicant’s top choice and he/she is going into the ED application with the full intention of pulling out of ED if he/she is accepted by the EA school. IMO the OP should discuss this plan in detail with his/her guidance counselor. As I noted above, this would not be an acceptable plan in out HS.
@happy1 … not sure if you misunderstood my post but it was exactly meant as you phrased it.
@healthychair what you are doing is perfectly fine. You can withdraw your ED application (or change to RD) at any time before a decision is made with no repercussions. Don’t listen to any poster that says this is unethical. It is only unethical once you receive an ED decision.
In fact that is exactly what ED2 is for…to allow you to apply to another school in an early round and then apply to BU in a second early round once you have found out your decision from the EA/ED1. In this case your EA decision is past the date you must submit ED2 so there is no issue withdrawing the ED2 application as long as it is before the ED2 decision.
I disagree with the above…IMO the purpose of EDII is to give an applicant a later ED option if he/she doesn’t feel their application is at it’s strongest at the EDI deadline (ex. wants to show strong first semester senior year grades, an upcoming big award), if he/she has not decided on a top choice college by the ED I deadline, or if the applicant did not get into a top choice college ED and uses EDIi for the second choice college.
Personality I have an issue with an applicant applying ED when there is an active application outstanding at a preferred college. At the very least the OP should honestly discuss his/her plan with his/her guidance counselor.
Every one has an opinion but the reality is that the OP can do exactly what they suggest in there opening statement and there will be no repercussions. There are many applicants that will withdraw or change there ED application to RD after they have submitted but before decisions are made.
We will have to agree to disagree. In the end the OP will have to decide with his/her parents and guidance counselor how to proceed.
BU certainly contemplates ED applicants applying to multiple institutions. I did not see any restrictions on where/how else ED applicants can otherwise apply on its website. The restrictions and binding nature of the application only kick in on an ED acceptance when the student must withdraw all other applications. I assume the existing EA application is non-restrictive. If it is restrictive, then the issue would be with the EA school. More interesting for the OP, what would you do if you got deferred by the EA school? If you got accepted ED2, you would be bound to attend BU. Would you withdraw your ED2 application?
A separate issue is if your GC would sign off on the ED2 application, but I don’t see a BU issue.
@ucbalumnus Great thank you, I’ll talk to my counselor about it.
Thanks @CU123, that’s really helpful
@BKSquared Thanks for your help, I will talk to my councilor about this. To answer your question, if I were deferred I would keep my ED2 application in the pool and attend BU if admitted. However, I think it would be unlikely that I would be deferred because I am on a gap year and would have no new info to add to my application for the second semester.
@happymomof1 Thanks, I’ll run it by my GC and see what she says