Your senior year of high school is often filled with a rush of deadlines and work: you are trying to successfully wrap up one chapter of your life while simultaneously planning out the next one. Everybody knows that you also have to apply to college during your senior year of high school. This is because most schools don’t take applications from juniors or below, but if you wait until after graduation, it is usually too late. So after you have picked out your favorite schools, when exactly are you supposed to send in your applications?

You have probably noticed that each school you apply to has a few different deadlines that you can choose from. If you have already missed the first one, your first instinct might be to panic, but we are here to tell you to take a deep breath.

This article will walk you through everything you need to know about the different kinds of college deadlines. If you are wondering about if you should skip regular decision and apply early to a school, this is the article for you. If you cannot choose between applying early action vs. early decision, we will make sure you have the tools to make the best choice for you. We will also include the most common deadlines for each type, so you can plan your schedule accordingly.

Let’s get started!

What is Early Decision?

The benefits of early decision are plentiful! Basically, if you apply early decision to a school, you are telling the admissions committee “Your school is the only one for me. I have considered all my other options, but I am sure that you are my first choice.”

You should be so sure, in fact, that you should be willing to commit to attending the school immediately upon receipt of your acceptance. Let us break it down for you:

When you apply early decision, the deadlines tend to hover in mid-November, so you will probably need to spend the majority of the summer before your senior year preparing your application; there is absolutely no room for procrastinating when you apply early. When you think about, applying early can actually mean less stress in the long run, because you are not trying to finish completing college applications while doing AP® homework, or running your school’s student government – unlike some of your classmates.

After the November deadline, you will not have to wait too long before you hear back from your first choice school. Most of the time, you will found out whether or not you got in around mid-December, just before Winter Break.

The only catch about early decision is that is binding, which means that if the school accepts you, you are required to attend. This is not a commitment to be taken likely, as it is very similar to signing a legal contract. The only way you can “get out” of an early decision acceptance is by proving that the financial aid package offered by the college is not sufficient, and that attending would cause undue financial hardship to your family. Even so, proving this would require a lot of paperwork and meetings. This is the main draw back of applying early decision: that you are not able to apply to multiple schools and compare financial aid packages before making your final decision.

If you accepted early decision, you must withdraw all the applications that you submitted elsewhere and send in your nonrefundable deposit well in advance of the May first “National College Decision Day” deadline.

You can read more about early decision and its benefits here.

What is Early Action?

Early action is basically early decision’s more flexible counterpart. If you apply to a school early action, you are demonstrating that you hold a great interest in the school and think that it could be a good fit for you, but unlike early decision, you are still considering a few other options.

Early action programs, even if they are Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) programs that only allow you to apply to one school ahead of time, are not binding. This means that even if you receive an offer of admission, you are allowed to wait until May first (known as National College Decision Day) to send in your answer.

The deadlines for the two programs tend to be similar; that is, sometimes applications are due as early as November 1^st, while others are due later in the month, around the 15^th. No colleges currently have application due before the 1^st of November, to allow scores from the October SAT® and ACT® time to be processed.

The waiting period is slightly longer for early action vs. early decision. After you submit your application in November, you tend to not hear back until mid-January, early February at the latest.

If you are accepted and really want to go there, you are allowed to withdraw your applications from other schools, but you do not have to. The nice thing about early action is that you are able to experience the relief of being accepted to college so early in the semester. However, you also have the luxury of waiting to hear back from other schools that you applied to regular decision and comparing their financial aid packages before you are required to make your final decision.

You can read more about early action and its benefits here.

Early Action vs. Early Decision

Choosing which early application program you would like to participate in can be tough! Whether you choose early action vs. early decision really boils down to two factors. Let us break them down for you:

• The financial factor. Like we said, the only way you can get out of a binding early decision agreement is to prove financial hardship – something that is often a difficult task. You should not apply early decision to a school if you would be uncomfortable going through this process if need be. Typically, it is only even an option to low-income families; middle class families would be hard pressed extricating themselves from the contract.Because of this, students who want to choose between multiple financial aid packages should apply early action, not early decision.
• The favorite factor. If you are absolutely certain that Yale is the school for you, then you should apply early decision. If you like Yale a lot, but could also be happy at Boston University or Vassar College, you should apply early action to Yale, then wait and see how things work out at the other schools.Don’t let your parents, friends, or even school guidance counselor pressure you into applying early decision to a school that you are not 100% sure of. It is an important decision that requires a lot of research. So, if you like a school, but aren’t in love with it, early action is a better choice for you.

Remember: whether you apply early decision or early action, you will still need to prepare your applications for other schools while you wait to hear back. If you do not get in, the turnaround between you finding out and regular decision deadlines is often very short, as those applications tend to be due between January 1^st and January 15^th, which a select few due in early February.

Why Apply Early

Some colleges will require that you submit a purpose statement along with the other components of your application. It usually will include some intriguing information about yourself as a person and student that the admissions committee would have a hard time finding elsewhere in your application. Basically, it is your chance to really self yourself to them as someone that they should not think twice about admitting. You can use it as a space to ensure that they know that you belong at their school, to show them that you can enhance the campus, and they are your number one choice.

Think of applying early as the ultimate mission statement. Applying early action or early decision proves a lot about you: it tells them that you are a good planner – that you thought far enough ahead to ensure that your complete application was prepared quite early in your senior year. It also tells them that you are serious about attending their school; that the committee should be just as interested in you as you are in them.

While interviews and essays are still required during the early action and early decision application process, the admissions committee at the school of your dreams if more likely to believe you when you tell them their your number one choice because your words are backed up with actions.

If You Miss the Deadline

While the many benefits of early action and early decision should be obvious by now, it is not the end of the world if you do not meet the deadlines. Whether you think you can’t put together a convincing application in time, one of your letters of recommendation gets held up in the mail, or you simply let the due date slip your mind, there are lots of reasons why you could not be able to apply early. If this happens to you, the first thing you need to do is take a long, deep breath and not panic. You still have options!

Sometimes, colleges have two rounds of early admission, so this should be the first thing you look into after you miss a deadline. Remember, this second round of application reviews usually happen no more than a month after the first one, so be quick! If the school of your dream does not have this option, you will always be able to apply during regular decision.

However, if you miss the regular decision deadline, which vary by school but tend to hover in late December and early January, your options will be as follows below:

• Apply to another school with a later deadline.
• See if you can apply to enter for the spring semester.
• Wait a year and apply then.

Missing a deadline always tends to feel like the end of the world, but remember that you always have options – no matter how limited. However, it is always better to avoid being in this situation in the first place, so be sure to mark your favorite school’s early action and early decision deadlines on your calendar today.

A Quick Review

Here are some important things to remember as you weigh the pros and cons of early action vs. early decision:

• Early decision is a binding agreement: if you get in, you have to go.
• You will know your admission decision within a month.
• Early action is non-binding, which means that you find out early, but have a long time to decide.
• You will hear back from the college in late January, mid-February at the latest.
• Both applications are usually due between November 1^st and November 15^th.
• Both types of early applications demonstrate a vested interest in the school.

So there you go: now you know the pros and cons of early action vs. early decision.

Good luck!

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