Early Action, Early Decision, and What Each One Commits You To

Applying early sounds like one decision. It is at least two, and they differ in a way that matters more than the calendar does.

Early Decision is a contract

Early Decision is binding. College Board states it plainly: if the college accepts you and offers enough financial aid, you must go.

That carries three consequences:

• You may apply Early Decision to only one college.
• If you are admitted, you withdraw your other applications.
• You will usually be admitted before you have any other offer to compare it with.

There is a release condition, and it is narrower than people expect. You can be let out of the commitment if the financial aid is not sufficient. "Not sufficient" is judged in a conversation with that college, which has already secured your commitment. That is a weaker position than having three offers in hand.

Early Action is just an earlier date

Early Action is not binding. You apply early, you hear early, and you decide later. You can apply Early Action to several colleges, and you normally have until 1 May to reply, which is enough time to put the aid offers side by side.

Some colleges run a restricted version, described as Restrictive or Single-Choice Early Action, which limits where else you may apply early while still not binding you to attend. The rules vary between colleges, so read the one you are applying to rather than assuming.

The cost of applying Early Decision

The financial case against Early Decision is simple. Aid offers vary substantially between colleges for the same student, and the only way to discover by how much is to hold more than one.

Early Decision trades that away. For a family who can afford whatever the college asks, the trade may be worth it. For a family who cannot, it removes the one piece of leverage they had, at the exact moment it would have mattered.

If cost will decide where you go, that is a strong argument for Early Action or Regular Decision.

What the early round does not do

Applying early does not make a weak application strong. It commits you to whatever your record looks like in the autumn of your final year, including test scores and grades you might have improved by January.

Early admission rates are often higher than regular rates, which gets read as an advantage from applying early. Some of that gap is the pool rather than the plan: early applicants skew towards students who are already well prepared and certain of their choice, and recruited athletes and legacy applicants are concentrated there too. How much of the remaining difference is the timing itself is not something this site can tell you, and anyone claiming a precise figure is guessing.

Before you commit

• Track every deadline in one place
• Compare colleges on cost after aid
• Work out what each one would cost you