Early Decision vs. Early Action - Which One Fits?

My daughter and I met with her high school counselor yesterday.

Good meeting. I learned a thing or two, and it appears that she is on track with everything needed for this stage of college applications.

The main items needed are refining the essay, and answering some questions for each school she is applying to. Mostly data entry.

My big takeaway from the meeting was learning the difference between early decision and early action.

By now I should know that these are two different things. But c'mon, they sound so similar. I didn't realize it. There's a big difference between the two.

College applicants can choose to apply with either, or neither. Here is a breakdown of each.

Early Decision

When you apply with early decision, it means that the applicant is committing to accepting the school's offer of acceptance (and here's the big catch) - REGARDLESS of the school's financial aid decision. This is a binding commitment.

So let's say the applicant applies with early decision to LMU. In this case the applicant is telling LMU that IF they are accepted, they will accept the offer, regardless of any financial aid decisions. Even if the student needs to pay full tuition - they are committed to attending that school.

Our counselor said that there are not too many early decision cases. As you can probably imagine, the only students that opt for early decison have these two things going for them:

• They really want to go to that school

• They have the money to pay the tuition; even if they get no financial assistance from the school.

A big advantage of going this route is that your application gets priority over the others. You are in a small pool of applicants that are basically getting fast-tracked in the application process. And the acceptance rate for early decision is usually higher. Also, some schools offer more financial aid to these applicants. Not surprising. So you've got that going for you...

There are also consequences to breaking this binding agreement. There is a reason why the parents must also sign the agreement. If broken, the student might have the offer rescinded, the deposit might be forfiet. But what might be the harshest outcome is the hit that the high school will take. The relationship between the college and the high school is now affected, and this can have a negative effect on all subsequent applicants that apply with early decision.

So far we are not in this boat. We won't be applying early decision.

Early Action

This option is non-binding. A student can take more time and leaves themselves more options to look around. Some schools will ask their early action applicants to NOT opt for early action or decision from other schools, for obvious reasons. But it appears that most do not. I'm still not sure how a college would go about policing this effectively.

And for the student, keeping options open is usually the best way to go.

In the end, students should apply to the schools that interest them the most. Schools that get them excited about showing up and learning.

I can see us applying with early action. I'll keep you posted.