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Early Admission (EA) has early deadlines. Students are notified of acceptance quite early also. Students may apply to as many EA schools as they wish. They are not bound to enroll at that school. In fact, they have until May 1st to notify the school whether they will enroll or not.
Early Decision (ED) also has early deadlines but also includes a binding contract stating that accepted students MUST attend that university. Students may only apply for one school’s ED program. Some schools have single choice ED policies which mean you can only apply to their early program. Reading the fine print is essential.
Regular Decision is the one we are all are familiar with. This is the typical admissions process. Please note that many schools only offer regular decision. The more competitive schools tend to offer the EA and ED options.
Rolling Admissions is the process some schools use. They accept applications all year round. This means all is not lost if you are not accepted at any of your schools – rolling admissions schools count on being students’ back-up plans. The other implication, however, is, if one of your desired schools has rolling admissions, the sooner the better is the application strategy you need to employ. It is tempting to procrastinate since they have no deadline. However, once the class is filled, there is no room for additional students. And the financial aid office will have less money to give you the later you are accepted.
