Likelier to be accepted EA or regular application?

[Anonymous]

Colleges crave committed students. That is why EA greatly improves your chances over regular admission.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the school. Most of the schools we looked at have about the same admission rate either way, EA or RD.

ED will increase your chances with one school, but could cost you opportunities at others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges crave committed students. That is why EA greatly improves your chances over regular admission.

I think you are confusing EA and ED. EA doesn't commit you, only gets you an earlier answer. As a pp noted you can apply to 10 (or more) schools EA.

[Anonymous]

This is all new to me. Son is only a sophomore but I would appreciate some kind soul explaining the difference between early admission and early decision and what happens if you are accepted or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is all new to me. Son is only a sophomore but I would appreciate some kind soul explaining the difference between early admission and early decision and what happens if you are accepted or not.

With early decision (ED) you are committing to attend if accepted. You can only apply ED to one college. I agree that colleges love students who apply ED. They want kids who will be happy at the school and not drop out, with the added benefit that ED students' commitment to attend boosts the college's matriculation rates which is a factor in the USNWR rankings. As a consequence, at many schools that offer ED, the ED acceptance rate is higher than the regular admissions acceptance rate. The downside of ED is that, if you are applying for financial aid or hope to receive merit aid, you will not be able to compare offers from other schools. Once you get your ED acceptance, you are supposed to go to your high school's guidance counselor and withdraw all your other pending college applications. If you go to College Confidential you will see anecdotal stories about "some kid, somewhere" who didn't withdraw other applications and the ED acceptance was withdrawn. Generally, I think the only way you can get out of an ED acceptance is if your financial situation changes and/or the financial aid offer is insufficient, and you can make a credible case that you really, really can't afford to attend.

With early action (EA), you apply earlier and you find out earlier. But you are not committed to attending. You can apply to as many schools EA as you want (unless it's single choice early action, or SCEA). So if you get accepted EA at College #1 in November, but then in April College #2 comes in with a really generous merit aid offer, or maybe you just like College #2 better, then you are free to take College #2's offer.

You will hear that ED/EA are not that much of an advantage for unhooked kids, because they are used to get athletes to commit, so most of these ED/EA slots are going to athletes. I'm not sure how true this is, and I would assume it differs from college to college. Unfortunately, colleges are never going to post that they use ED/EA as a recruitment tool, so there's no way to find out for a particular college you're interested in. I'll say this and it may be controversial: in our experience, applying ED as a full pay student (not asking for aid, if you can do this) is a winning combination.

Not all colleges offer ED or EA or single choice early action (SCEA). Some schools like Harvard moved from ED to SCEA because of this perception that ED discourages kids who need financial aid and need to compare aid packages from different colleges.

So all of this obviously opens up a lot of strategizing. I'd recommend applying EA to a few schools and then ED at a first-choice school that's realistic given GPA and SATs. This is what my kid did. DC applied EA to some less selective schools (generally few extra essays, so it's easy to get the application in!) and got acceptances and merit aid by November. It was very nice to have these acceptances while DC was agonizing about the ED application results that were due out in December. Yes, it's fine to apply ED to one (and only one) school and have a bunch of EA applications out there.

[Anonymous]

I'll add to PP:

If you apply single choice EA, you can't apply ED elsewhere. However, the acceptance is non-binding like most ED.

Also, other colleges having rolling admissions (particularly large state colleges), so that is another strategy to find out early if you get your application in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all new to me. Son is only a sophomore but I would appreciate some kind soul explaining the difference between early admission and early decision and what happens if you are accepted or not.

So all of this obviously opens up a lot of strategizing. I'd recommend applying EA to a few schools and then ED at a first-choice school that's realistic given GPA and SATs. This is what my kid did. DC applied EA to some less selective schools (generally few extra essays, so it's easy to get the application in!) and got acceptances and merit aid by November. It was very nice to have these acceptances while DC was agonizing about the ED application results that were due out in December. Yes, it's fine to apply ED to one (and only one) school and have a bunch of EA applications out there.

That early?

I'm curious about the timing of merit aid as DC applied ED to a school for which he is a strong contender but the website says nothing about timing. Do schools generally dole out merit aid with acceptances, or do they wait until spring for everyone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all new to me. Son is only a sophomore but I would appreciate some kind soul explaining the difference between early admission and early decision and what happens if you are accepted or not.

So all of this obviously opens up a lot of strategizing. I'd recommend applying EA to a few schools and then ED at a first-choice school that's realistic given GPA and SATs. This is what my kid did. DC applied EA to some less selective schools (generally few extra essays, so it's easy to get the application in!) and got acceptances and merit aid by November. It was very nice to have these acceptances while DC was agonizing about the ED application results that were due out in December. Yes, it's fine to apply ED to one (and only one) school and have a bunch of EA applications out there.

That early?

I'm curious about the timing of merit aid as DC applied ED to a school for which he is a strong contender but the website says nothing about timing. Do schools generally dole out merit aid with acceptances, or do they wait until spring for everyone?

Yes, that early! This was at Northeastern a year ago. DC and a friend both got awarded the exact same, substantial amount of money but with different award names in the same week in November. I think it may have been near the end of November but I can't remember.

There 's a running debate on DCUM and elsewhere about whether applying ED/EA leads to more or less merit aid, at schools that offer merit aid. Some schools may use merit aid early on to lock in top EA/SCEA applicants before they commit elsewhere. Other schools with ED may assume the ED kids are locked in so they may use the merit aid to entice kids in the regular decision round who are weighing multiple offers. Not sure we ever reached a conclusion, and again it probably varies from school to school.

[Anonymous]

I have read that if you are looking for merit aid, you should apply EA but not ED.

I think it really matters if you are talking about the "top" colleges and universities or lower-tier schools. Remember, there is a big difference between the H/Y/Ps and Williams/Swarthmores of the world and other schools. Top schools are the first choice of many of their applicants, and have enough qualified applicants to fill their classes several times over. They don't need to offer merit aid to attract students, and they don't "need" to admit anyone early in hopes of "snagging" them. They also don't have to admit three or four or five or six students for every seat in order to fill their classes.

Outside of the top colleges that so many are clamoring to get into, the game is very different. These schools want top students if they can get them, and so they offer merit aid to attract them. Also, anything they can do to increase their "yield" helps their stats, so they want to admit students who want to go to their schools. That means a student who demonstrates a lot of interest in the school (calls, visits, interviews, emails, etc) has a substantial leg up over a student who does not (all else equal). Making an effort to show interest in the school and applying early (ED for sure, but EA also) can significantly affect one's chances of admission. And at many of these schools, much of the merit aid goes to students who apply EA. They don't need to offer it to entice the student who applies ED.

[Anonymous]

While they don't "need" to offer it to ED students to entice them, I've been told (and we researched this) they use the same criteria for ED students as they do for RD students with merit aid. Otherwise the top students would never apply ED and those are precisely the students they want, and they want to lock them in.

I'm just wondering when they notify ED students if they've received merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all new to me. Son is only a sophomore but I would appreciate some kind soul explaining the difference between early admission and early decision and what happens if you are accepted or not.

With early decision (ED) you are committing to attend if accepted. You can only apply ED to one college. I agree that colleges love students who apply ED. They want kids who will be happy at the school and not drop out, with the added benefit that ED students' commitment to attend boosts the college's matriculation rates which is a factor in the USNWR rankings. As a consequence, at many schools that offer ED, the ED acceptance rate is higher than the regular admissions acceptance rate. The downside of ED is that, if you are applying for financial aid or hope to receive merit aid, you will not be able to compare offers from other schools. Once you get your ED acceptance, you are supposed to go to your high school's guidance counselor and withdraw all your other pending college applications. If you go to College Confidential you will see anecdotal stories about "some kid, somewhere" who didn't withdraw other applications and the ED acceptance was withdrawn. Generally, I think the only way you can get out of an ED acceptance is if your financial situation changes and/or the financial aid offer is insufficient, and you can make a credible case that you really, really can't afford to attend.

With early action (EA), you apply earlier and you find out earlier. But you are not committed to attending. You can apply to as many schools EA as you want (unless it's single choice early action, or SCEA). So if you get accepted EA at College #1 in November, but then in April College #2 comes in with a really generous merit aid offer, or maybe you just like College #2 better, then you are free to take College #2's offer.

You will hear that ED/EA are not that much of an advantage for unhooked kids, because they are used to get athletes to commit, so most of these ED/EA slots are going to athletes. I'm not sure how true this is, and I would assume it differs from college to college. Unfortunately, colleges are never going to post that they use ED/EA as a recruitment tool, so there's no way to find out for a particular college you're interested in. I'll say this and it may be controversial: in our experience, applying ED as a full pay student (not asking for aid, if you can do this) is a winning combination.

Not all colleges offer ED or EA or single choice early action (SCEA). Some schools like Harvard moved from ED to SCEA because of this perception that ED discourages kids who need financial aid and need to compare aid packages from different colleges.

So all of this obviously opens up a lot of strategizing. I'd recommend applying EA to a few schools and then ED at a first-choice school that's realistic given GPA and SATs. This is what my kid did. DC applied EA to some less selective schools (generally few extra essays, so it's easy to get the application in!) and got acceptances and merit aid by November. It was very nice to have these acceptances while DC was agonizing about the ED application results that were due out in December. Yes, it's fine to apply ED to one (and only one) school and have a bunch of EA applications out there.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give such a detailed post and provide me with an education. And also to everyone who has contributed. So many options!

[Anonymous]

This is a bit off topic but what happens if a college accepts more students than seats? I know there must be some type of formula that is used knowing that students apply to numerous school. Do the colleges accommodate the overflow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit off topic but what happens if a college accepts more students than seats? I know there must be some type of formula that is used knowing that students apply to numerous school. Do the colleges accommodate the overflow?

PP here. I mean what happens if students accept a colleges offer resulting in overflow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit off topic but what happens if a college accepts more students than seats? I know there must be some type of formula that is used knowing that students apply to numerous school. Do the colleges accommodate the overflow?

Yes they do. Some schools resort to temp housing, make double rooms triples, hire adjunct faculty, etc. Some have offered deferred admission (January admission). This is why they like ED - if they've got 40% of the class set before they turn to the RD pool there is less chance of overfilling or under filling the class. This is also what the waitlist is for - if you think you might be oversubscribed you might do more WL offers and then backfill as needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit off topic but what happens if a college accepts more students than seats? I know there must be some type of formula that is used knowing that students apply to numerous school. Do the colleges accommodate the overflow?

Yes they do. Some schools resort to temp housing, make double rooms triples, hire adjunct faculty, etc. Some have offered deferred admission (January admission). This is why they like ED - if they've got 40% of the class set before they turn to the RD pool there is less chance of overfilling or under filling the class. This is also what the waitlist is for - if you think you might be oversubscribed you might do more WL offers and then backfill as needed.

So it seems that students who do regular decision have less of a chance of admission. Are there a certain number of slots held for regular decision?