How to Choose Your ED School
It’s no secret that applying earlier to colleges boosts your chances of admission. In fact, when time permits, we often encourage students to apply to as many colleges early as possible. Applying early can help students hear back from colleges earlier to reassess their list and decide if they would like to make changes to the schools they apply to in Regular Decision rounds. There are several different kinds of early application paths, though, and there’s one in particular we’d like to focus on today: Early Decision (ED).
What’s the difference between ED, EA, REA, and SCEA?
Let’s start by defining a few terms:
EA: Early Action. A student applies early and hears back early. This is a non-binding agreement.
REA or SCEA: Restrictive Early Action or Single Choice Early Action. Only a few schools have this option, so let’s break down the rules of each one:
Georgetown: If you apply early here, you can apply early to other schools as well. However, you cannot apply Early Decision to any schools. We should note, though, that Georgetown’s EA program does not offer students any boost in their admissions chances.
Princeton: If you apply early here, you may not apply ED or EA to any other private college in the US. You can still apply early to public universities as long as the decision is non-binding.
Harvard: If you apply early here, you may not apply ED or EA to any other private college in the US. You can still apply early to public universities as long as the decision is non-binding.
Yale: If you apply early here, you may not apply ED or EA to any other private college in the US. You can still apply early to public universities as long as the decision is non-binding or to a private school if the early option is a non-binding rolling admissions program. You may also apply early to schools outside of the United States.
CalTech: If you apply early here, you may not apply ED or EA to any other private college in the US. You can still apply early to public universities as long as the decision is non-binding. You may also apply early to a military academy, an institution non-binding rolling admissions process, any scholarship or special admissions program (public or private) that has early non-binding deadlines, or an institution outside of the US.
Notre Dame: If you apply early here, you can still apply early action to any public or private university. You cannot, however, apply to any school under a binding Early Decision program. If you are deferred from Notre Dame and wish to apply Early Decision 2 elsewhere, it is expected that you immediately withdraw your application to Notre Dame.
Stanford: If you apply early here, you may not apply ED or EA to any other private college in the US. You can still apply early to public universities as long as the decision is non-binding.
ED: Early Decision. This is a binding decision; if accepted, you must attend this university.
How to Choose Your Plan
It’s clear from the above restrictions why binding or restrictive options offer students a higher chance of acceptance. Even non-restrictive options can offer students a boost in their chances of admission, though—when you apply early, you are competing with a smaller pool of applicants.
The general rule about selecting your ED/SCEA/REA plan is to choose the school you are most excited to attend. However, as with anything in the college admissions process, we want to stress that context matters here. If a student’s top choice school is Yale University but they are not a competitive applicant, they may be throwing away their early application plan on a school that is very unlikely to accept them. In our College Application Crash Course, we discuss the importance of ensuring your school list is balanced, and this includes being strategic about your ED/EA plan.
A better strategy might be to find a school where your GPA and standardized test scores are on the lower end of the median range of accepted applicants and apply to the school’s early decision plan. However, even this requires strategy. For example, a student might identify themselves as a good candidate for a college like Pomona, which has an overall acceptance rate of 7% but an ED acceptance rate of 7%. However, even if their GPA, test scores, and extracurriculars set them apart from most students, they may not be a strong candidate if they are not interested in an interdisciplinary approach to their major. Furthermore, they need to back up their claim of being interested in this interdisciplinary approach through their resume items.
What it Comes Down To
Oftentimes, students will claim they are excited about a school and choose it as their top choice without doing much research into the college: what the school looks for in candidates, what their curriculum is like, the opportunities available on campus, and what is unique about the school. If the reason a student wants to attend a school are applicable to many other schools, the student hasn’t done their research. We don’t only recommend researching the schools a student wants to apply ED to; we recommend researching as many schools as possible to understand what makes every school unique. This is the best way for students to identify what school they are the best fit for. Students should visit the campus, explore the college’s website, and aim to fully understand the school’s culture, curriculum, and opportunities.
This kind of in-depth research takes time. Students should begin putting together their college lists early to make sure they apply as knowledgeable candidates. The more a student knows about the college, the more they can include details about themselves that make their application stand out and demonstrate them as a strong fit for the school.
