Deciding About Early Decision and Other Early Options

The Pros and Cons of Early Decision

On the surface, the rationale for early decision admission programs is simple. If you have a clear first-choice college, you can express that preference by applying early and committing to attend if admitted. If accepted, you can bypass much of the drawn-out anxiety lasting into the spring that can accompany regular decision applications. If the college says “no” (a denial), or “we are not sure” (a deferral of the decision until the regular application cycle), you can still apply to other colleges in time to meet the regular cycle deadline.

Although early decision programs at some colleges have been around for decades, they have spread and become more popular in the last ten years. At the same time, they have become highly controversial, even rivaling debates over the SAT and affirmative action in college admissions. James Fallows, former editor of the influential Atlantic Monthly magazine, has forcefully argued that early decision is bad policy. In an article titled “The Early Decision Racket,” he wrote that early decision programs “have added an insane intensity to middle-class obsessions about college. They also distort the admissions process, rewarding the richest students from the most exclusive high schools and penalizing nearly everyone else. But the incentives for many colleges and students are as irresistible as they are perverse.” These are strong words. Why has a program so seemingly well-intentioned and straightforward generated this kind of reaction? 

There are so many early options to keep straight and choose from. I think the whole thing should be called “early confusion.”  - Parent of a high school junior

Some Advantages of Early Decision

From a college’s perspective, early decision enrolls students who are exceptionally eager to attend. The college also gets a good start at assembling a well-rounded class, since it knows that each student who is accepted early decision will indeed matriculate (that is, enroll) in the fall. There is no guesswork involved in the yield from the pool of early decision acceptances: it is 100 percent, unless a student must decline because of insufficient financial aid. Early decision reduces enrollment uncertainty for a college. It can help a college minimize the hassle and cost associated with underenrollment or overenrollment, since it is impossible to predict precisely the yield for regular decision admits. From a competitive standpoint, it takes desirable students away from rival schools.

From the student’s perspective, a successful early decision application can end the anxiety and uncertainty of the college admissions process by mid-December of senior year. The process appears to be an efficient way to match students who want a given college with a college that wants them, and it looks like everyone wins. But as with everything else in college admissions, the situation is not that simple. 

“I just want to go to sleep until December 15th.” 

“I’ve taken up praying. I don’t even believe in God.”

“I’d sell my soul—if I still had one.”

“Either the best moment in life, probably better than sex, or the worst moment,
even worse than death.”

Student comments about early decision and early action posted on an Internet bulletin board

The Major Problems with Early Decision

Critics of early decision point out that it has become something it was never intended to be—an admissions strategy that appears to increase the chances of being accepted to a very selective institution. Some selective colleges have admissions rates two or three times higher for early decision applicants compared with regular decision applicants, and they fill from one-third to one-half of their freshman classes from the early pool. As a result, the much larger pool of regular decision applicants ends up competing for fewer slots well after the early applicants—a much smaller group—have secured their places.

Critics of early decision have argued that early decision programs favor students who do not need financial aid and who have access to a support system that will assist them in identifying a top-choice college by early in the fall of their senior year so they can submit their application materials by the November deadlines. Students with limited financial means, who disproportionately attend poorly funded and overcrowded public high schools, are much less likely to meet these criteria than students from private schools or high-performing public high schools.

Students who are accepted early decision are also potentially limited in terms of their financial aid options. Although a student can be released from an early decision commitment if the college’s financial aid package is inadequate, early decision does not give students with significant financial need a chance to compare financial aid offers from several schools, and perhaps even negotiate a more desirable package at one school based on the offer from another. Students whose families can pay the full sticker price of admission, in contrast, don’t have this concern. Strong family and counseling support to pick that one “right” college early and submit an application in time for early decision review is crucial as well.