Decision Day

Do you know anyone who is currently a senior in high school? Chances are that today is a VERY big day for them! Many of them decided to apply early decision or early action to some schools, and many of the decisions come out today! There are many reasons why students choose to apply ED or EA, but one of the main reasons is because it increases their chances of being admitted to highly selective schools. Check out some of these numbers from August, 2022. At Barnard College, they admit 8.4% of students who apply via regular decision. However, they admit 33.4% of students who apply via early decision! At Brown, your chances go from 4.1% to 16%, Cornell University goes from 6.7% to 21.4%, Dartmouth from 4.2% to 25.1%, Duke goes from 4.6% to 21%, and Grinnell College goes from 8.2% to a whopping 57.7%! At Middlebury College ED will up your chances from 10.7% to 45.1%, Northwestern goes from 5.1% to 24.3%, Rice goes from 8.6% to 18.1%, Tulane goes from 7.6% to 31.4%, University of Miami goes from 27.1% to 64.7%, Penn goes from 4.4% to 14.9%, UVA goes from 19.6% to 43.7%, Vanderbilt goes from 5.9% to 17.9%, Villanova goes from 23.3% to 59.6%, Williams goes from 7.3% to 33.3%, and Yale goes from 3.8% to 10.9%. You get my point. Early decision increases your chances of getting into selective schools. Now, the fact that some of those percentages are so insanely low (even with the ED increase) is a story for a different day.

There are a few other nuances to various admissions dates, but I just want to distinguish between early decision and early action for now. Early decision is a binding contract. You will not be able to review your financial aid package before accepting to go to the school. There is no changing your mind. You can only apply ED to one school. So, if you’re 100% sure you want to go to the school and your parents are 100% sure they can finance four years of that school, then you might want to consider applying early decision. I highly recommend working on these applications over the summer before your senior year. These schools typically have from one to four supplemental essays, and the schools review these essays very seriously.

Early action is not a binding contract, and students can apply to as many schools under EA as they would like. I’m sure you remember the discussion about demonstrated interest. Applying under one of these two plans is definitely a strong way to show demonstrated interest. You also remember the importance of yield to admissions offices. The schools want to admit students that they think will choose to attend their school. Students who apply early are signaling that they have a strong interest in attending the school. If students apply under early action, they will be able to compare financial aid packages from all their schools. They will also be able to use one offer to negotiate a better financial aid package from a different (but similar) school. This is commonly done.

Another great reason to apply early is that you should have a decision by winter break. For many students, that means that the entire college application process will be finished very soon as well as all the stress that comes with it. If students do not receive the news they were hoping for, they can still submit applications to other schools by the regular deadlines (or they can choose one Early Decision II school at that time).

For those who have children who are juniors or younger, they can certainly be researching schools to get some ideas which schools might be a good fit for them. Then, they can use the summer before senior year to put together a strong application for the schools at which they would like to apply either early decision and/or early action.