Early decision and early action applications are typically due by Nov. If a student is deferred, he or she will enter the pool for regular admission and will likely not hear back until mid-March or mid-April.
Applying early can be beneficial to both students and colleges. Schools with early decision programs tend to have higher acceptance rates for those applicants than for the overall applicant pool. Early decision is more valuable to colleges than early action because it helps them determine their yield of accepted applicants who actually enroll in college.
Yield is important to schools because it influences rankings and desirability among prospective students. Stephanie Klein Wassink, founder of AdmissionsCheckup.
Students with strong junior-year grades and standardized test scores are better candidates for early applications. Those with applications that could benefit from boosted fall semester grades or who are taking fall ACT or SAT tests may want to wait for regular admission before applying.
Above all, if a student chooses early decision, he or she needs to be sure of the decision before applying. For those ready to apply, but unsure of their choices, early action allows for more flexibility.
Ultimately, receiving early admission could mean a less stressful senior year for savvy applicants. What does early decision mean? Early action vs. Application deadlines. The trait that is the most similar between early action and early decision is the timeline. Some EA schools, however, may not release decisions until mid-January or February. This is still in advance of regular decision admissions notifications, which typically occur in March or April. Both early action and early decision generally have higher acceptance rates than those for students applying regular decision.
Whether or not acceptance is binding is one of the most notable differences between early decision and early action. Students who are accepted ED are bound to attend the institution. Early action applications are non-binding and consequently less restrictive.
Our free chancing engine takes into account your history, background, test scores, and extracurricular activities to show you your real chances of admission—and how to improve them. On the flip side, students who apply EA will be able to consider financial aid packages from their Early Action and Regular Decision schools.
Having these different offers gives students leverage and allows them to better negotiate their financial aid. ED plans have come under fire as unfair to students from families with low incomes, since they do not have the opportunity to compare financial aid offers.
This may give an unfair advantage to applicants from families who have more financial resources. You may want to share this with parents as well. For a student who has a definite first-choice college, applying early has many benefits besides possibly increasing the chance of getting in. Applying early lets the student:. Pressure to decide : Committing to one college puts pressure on students to make serious decisions before they've explored all their options.
Reduced financial aid opportunities : Students who apply under ED plans receive offers of admission and financial aid simultaneously and so will not be able to compare financial aid offers from other colleges. For students who absolutely need financial aid, applying early may be a risky option.
Because of the usual deadlines for applications, this means that if a student is rejected by the ED college, there are only two weeks left to send in other applications.
Encourage those of your students who are applying early to prepare other applications as they wait to receive admission decisions from their first-choice college. Senioritis : Applicants who learn early that they have been accepted into a college may feel that, their goal accomplished, they have no reason to work hard for the rest of the year. Early-applying students should know that colleges may rescind offers of admission should their senior-year grades drop.
Many students believe applying early means competing with fewer applicants and increasing their chances for acceptance. This is not always true. Colleges vary in the proportion of the class admitted early and in the percentage of early applicants they admit. Higher admission rates for ED applicants may correlate to stronger profiles among candidates choosing ED.
Students should ask the admission office whether their institution's admission standards differ between ED and regular applicants, and then assess whether applying early makes sense given their own profile.
The Common Application and some colleges' application forms require the student applying under early decision, as well as the parent and counselor, to sign an ED agreement form spelling out the plan's conditions. Make it clear in your school handbook and at college planning events that your policy for early-decision applications is to send the student's final transcript to one college only: anything else is unethical.
Print out and share the Early Decision and Early Action Calendar with students and parents to be sure they are aware of all the required steps for applying early.
0コメント