Should You Apply Early Decision?

Let’s look at another leading school: Brown, an Ivy League. If you applied Regular Decision for the Class of 2026, you had about a 5% chance of getting in. But if you applied Early Decision, you had about a 15% chance of getting in. Now, a 15% chance is still not all that great; it’s only about 1 in 7. But it’s much better than 5%, which is basically 1 in 20. Which odds would you rather have?

NOTE: A few top schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford have recently replaced Early Decision with something called Single-Choice Early Action (or Restrictive Action), which provides only a very slight admissions advantage, if any.

Need more convincing to apply Early Decision?

How about the fact that many leading universities fill as much as half of their freshman class with Early Decision candidates. That means that by the time the school gets around to even looking at Regular Decision candidates in January, over half the vacancies have already been filled. Vanderbilt University, for example, has 1,600 openings for their Class of 2023 (see chart). They got about 5,000 Early Decision applicants in November, and they accepted about 750 of them, filling 54% of those 1600 seats. By the time January rolled around, they got a massive influx of another 40,000 Regular Decision candidates… but by then they only had 750 spots left to fill.

That means that if you waited to apply to Vanderbilt through Regular Decision in January, you were not only competing against a much larger pool of 40,000 other candidates, but you were competing for just 750 spots. Wouldn’t you rather compete in the Early Decision round against only 5,000 candidates for twice as many spots? This is just one more compelling reason to apply Early Decision, but bear in mind that the trend in college admissions is to slowly reduce the percentage of students admitted through Early Decision. What that means is that top universities that accepted about 50% of their freshmen class through Early Decision for the Class of 2023, which probably only accept about 33% of their freshmen class through Early Decision for the Class of 2028 and beyond.

Sounds great… so what’s that catch?

If applying Early Decision seems too good to be true, you have a right to be skeptical. There are some issues that you need to be aware of. First and foremost, you need to get your completed application in by November, which means you really have to be on the ball with your organization and planning. You should really spend the summer before your senior year compiling a list of top colleges, doing extensive research on each one, and identifying a clear favorite, so that you have a good month or two to complete the Early Decision application before the November deadline.

Second, you need to be aware that your fall senior grades, plus any SATs or ACTs you were planning to take after November won’t be a part of your Early Decision application. Schools are going to give you an answer by mid-December, so they’ll be relying on your academic record up until that point. However, if your application is deferred in December, then you will have chance to update your record with fall semester grades plus any new standardized test scores. If you’re relying on your senior grades or standardized test scores to significantly boost your candidacy, Early Decision might not make sense for you. It’s better to submit a stronger application later, than a weaker application sooner.

Third, you have to be certain that the school you’re applying to is your top-choice, because if you get accepted, you have to enroll there. You, your parents, and your school counselor all sign a binding agreement promising that you’ll go there if you get in. Now, it’s not a true legal agreement; they won’t throw you in jail if you try to enroll somewhere else. But it is a serious honor code violation, and schools frequently share information with each other, and any school can rescind their acceptance offer if they discover that you bailed on someone else. It can also reflect badly on your high school, and they might punish your school by not accepting any candidates for a few years.

Fourth, you can only apply Early Decision to one school. This gets tricky from a strategic perspective, because many students wonder whether they should apply Early Decision to their out-of-reach “dream school,” or whether it’s smarter to apply the Early Decision advantage to a school they’re more likely to get into (a realistic “target” school). Unfortunately, no one can answer that for you. But don’t apply Early Decision to a school you really don’t want to attend, or that you have no chance of getting into. Also, bear in mind that if you apply Early Decision to one school, you can still apply “Early Action” to as many other schools as you want, since Early Action is non-binding (more on this later).

The final caveat with Early Decision is that you can’t compare financial aid packages. When you apply to a number of colleges through Regular Decision, you can compare the costs of each school based on the different scholarships and financial aid packages they’re each offering you. You might even get offered a “free ride” somewhere, which could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition costs. But with Early Decision, you’re committed to going to that one school, so you can’t shop around for a better deal. Most schools, however, are sensitive to this, and will work with you to find a financial aid package that fits your budget. And worst case, if you can prove that you truly can’t afford the school, most colleges will let you out of their Early Decision binding agreement.

What about Early Decision II?

A few select colleges offer another enrollment option called Early Decision II. It’s basically the same thing are Early Decision — it’s a binding agreement, you can only apply ED to one school, etc. — but you apply in January instead of November, and you hear back in February instead of December. One reason you might apply ED II is because you couldn’t get your application ready by November, or because you needed your senior grades or senior year SAT/ACT scores to boost your application. Or maybe you got rejected from your ED school, so you want to apply the admissions advantages of Early Decision somewhere else, say to your second-favorite school.

Applying Early Decision II improves your admissions odds quite a bit, but not nearly as much as applying Early Decision. For example, for the Class of 2026, Emory University had a very low Regular Decision rate of 9% (see chart). If you applied Early Decision II, you improved your admission rate to 14%, which is a little bit better. But if you applied Early Decision (I), you improved your admission rate to 32%, which is almost 1 in 3! Do you see why ED is so much better than ED II?

Vanderbilt offers another good example. The Regular Decision rate for the Class of 2026 was only 4.7%, which made it very difficult to get in through Regular Decision. That’s 1 in 21. If you applied Early Decision II, you improved your admissions odds to 10.3%, effectively doubling your odds to 1 in 10. But if you applied Early Decision (I), your odds of getting accepted were a whopping 24.1%, which is basically 1 in 4! The fact that you could boost your admissions odds from 1 in 25 (Regular Decision) to 1 in 11 (ED II) to 1 in 4 (ED) tells you everything you need to know about why you should apply Early Decision whenever possible.

Now the dirty truth about Early Decision…

It’s important to know that while Early Decision offers tremendous statistical advantages, you still have to be a really good candidate to get in. It would be a mistake to think that top colleges somehow lower their admissions standards in the Early Decision round and basically take anyone. They don’t. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: the Early Decision applicant pool is typically loaded with academic and extracurricular superstars. That’s a big part of why the admissions rate of ED candidates is so high; those candidates would probably get in anyway, no matter when they applied.

For example, in the Ivy League, most recruited athletes apply Early Decision. Since the school is actively recruiting these applicants, and many of them have been pre-vetted for their academic excellence, a large percentage of them (if not all of them) will get in. The same goes for legacy students; because their parents went there, they’re very familiar with the school and prepared to apply early. And a lot of those students will get in too. Also, the best students tend to be focused and organized; and a lot of those students apply Early Decision, and a lot of those get it. In other words, the relatively small Early Decision applicant pool is stocked with many of the best applicants the school is going to get, so it’s no wonder such a high percentage of them get in.

Still, every applicant can benefit by applying Early Decision. For one, colleges love enthusiasm; if you’re champing at the bit to work with a particular professor or take advantage of a unique offering at the school, you’re the kind of student they want. Also, colleges obsess about something called their Yield Rate, the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll. Since accepted ED students have to enroll, that’s an easy way to boost that important stat.

Finally, colleges fill holes to create a well-rounded class. They’re looking for that tuba player, that community activist, that Native American representative, that competitive dancer, etc. By filling these slots ahead of time with Early Decision candidates, they lock in these key positions early, and then they can rest easy and fill in the rest of their freshman class with more flexibility.

NOTE: Early Decision should not be confused with Early Action. Early Action just means that you apply early and hear back early; there’s no binding commitment and no significant statistical advantage.

Applying Early Decision is probably the single best way to improve your chances of getting into your top school.

Applicants to Brown University are three times more likely to get accepted as Early Decision applicants than Regular Decision applicants for a variety of reasons.

Emory accepts only 9% of Regular Decision applicants, but a whopping 32% of Early Decision applicants.

Colleges love Early Decision students. At Vanderbilt, over half the freshman class is made up of Early Decision candidates. If you wait to apply to Vanderbilt Regular Decision in January, that means half of the freshman slots have already been filled before they even look at your application.

Another benefit to applying Early Decision is that you get your results back sooner, which can make senior year less stressful.

Instead of Early Decision, a number of elite universities like Stanford, Harvard and a few others have switched to something called Single-Choice Early Action, which improves your admissions odds only very slightly, if at all.