early admissions

Most schools will only offer one of the following options for early applicants:

 

Early Decision (ED) allows your child to apply early, be considered among a more select pool of students and improve his or her chance of acceptance, and receive notification months before the usual deadline. The catch - it’s binding. While he or she is free to apply to other schools, if a school accepts the early decision application, your child is required by law to attend that school and must withdraw any other applications before sending a non-refundable deposit. Naturally, it is unwise to apply early decision unless your entire family has decided that the school is the perfect fit for your child.

 

Early Action (EA) is similar in structure except the decision is not binding. The catch here is that early action does not significantly improve the chance of acceptance.

 

Restrictive Early Action (REA), like Early Action, is non-binding. Unlike Early Action, programs with REA require students to refrain from submitting any other early applications, even to other non-binding programs. REA was instituted by a number of select colleges and universities as a way to encourage students to be more selective with early applications while still not requiring them to sign a binding contract in November of their senior year.