If you’re planning to apply to college early, you might be familiar with the following terms: Early Decision, Early Decision 2, Early Action, and Restricted Early Action. Trying to navigate your way through these terms (and their abbreviations) is the worst. That’s a bit dramatic, but we do think it’s fair to say that it can be stressful trying to figure where you can apply, where you can’t apply, and when everything needs to be submitted. We’re keeping it as simple as possible and breaking it down below:
Early Decision & Early Decision 2:
Pack your bags, because you’re headed to this school! When you apply to a school under the Early Decision or Early Decision 2 plan, you are signing a binding agreement that says that if you get in, you’re going. This also means that if you get in, you are not allowed to apply to schools during regular decision. If you’re certain that you want to go to say, NYU, you’ll submit your Early Decision application by November 15th and you’ll hear back in December. (Other schools have similar deadlines and dates, but please check.) This makes Early Decision a great option if 1) you’re likely to get in and 2) you’ll be fully prepared to stop the college application process if you do indeed get accepted. The downside if that you could get flat out rejected, and if you’re not planning ahead, you’ll have two weeks to submit the rest of your regular decision application.
Things get a little bit trickier when it comes to the two types of Early Action: Early Action and Restricted Early Action. Just like Early Decision, both of these applications will be due sometime in November and you’ll hear back in December. This is where it’s different from Early Decision: both Early Action and Restricted Early Action are non-binding, meaning that you do not have to attend if you get in. It’s simply a way to know early and have something in your back pocket. You can still apply to other schools during regular decision and decide where you ultimately want to go to college in May. But there are a few more differences to note!
At most colleges, Early Action means that you can apply to others schools under an Early Decision plan or another Early Action plan at the same time.
Restrictive Early Action (reminder: non-binding) does not allow you to apply to any other colleges under Early Decision or Early Action. You’ll likely have to sign a statement saying that you’re only submitting one early application.
And then there’s old faithful: regular decision. You know the drill here. These applications are usually due around January 1st.
A tip on getting organized:
Helping students apply to college is our job, and we still brush up on this stuff every year to make sure we have our ducks in a row. The college application process is an imperfect one, so with that, we have some advice: call schools directly if you’re ever unsure. Yes, actually pick up your phone and confirm an assumption or clarify something that is confusing you. We can’t go through all of our blog readers school choices, but we can stress the importance of making a document that keeps track of deadlines and early application expectations and guidelines.
Need help demystifying the college application process? Contact us here.