Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision


How was school today? Did you miss me? :-) I missed you! My day was pretty good – I attended the Ohio Association of College Admissions Counselors Conference. I have been sitting here and looking through the 5 inch stack of information that I gathered during the meetings today trying to figure out what is best to share with you from the conference and there is so much that I don’t even know where to start. So, between the information overload and just being tired my brain is now mush

Hopefully you are OK if I share some of the information gathered today later. (I will mention that for some students who had specified information that they were looking for in a college, I tried to keep my eyes and ears open for you and have some resources to give you tomorrow or the next time I see you.)

One topic that can get confusing for students (and parents and anyone else in the college application process – including me at times) is the different application submission options. You will often see some or all of the terms: “Early Decision,” “Early Action,” and “Regular Decision” listed as deadlines for your applications. So let’s briefly review what each one means…

Early Decision

The key piece to know with Early Decision is that it is a COMMITMENT! Applying to a school in this program is considered a contract between the student and the college. You can apply to only one school as an Early Decision school. If you are accepted, you are promising to withdraw all other applications.


Early Action

This is a non-binding option. Early Action has an earlier application deadline and students will learn if they have been accepted to the school much earlier. (Some schools will defer their decision to the Regular Decision deadline if the student is on the bubble.) Early Action is not a contract and the student is not obligated to attend school at that institution.


Regular Decision

This is the deadline that you will generally see first as it is the most common. This means you are applying and will hear your decision on their regular time schedule. There are no commitments or early notifications. It is important to note that the Regular Admissions deadlines are often AFTER the deadline for scholarship consideration – which adds in a whole additional set of deadlines to watch, but that is a different story for another day.

It is really important to be watching your deadlines carefully – I can’t stress that enough!

OK, so one quick bit of information from today’s session since it deals with Early Decision and Early Action… The following is a list of the PRIVATE colleges in Ohio that have one of these programs:

Early Decision: Denison, Kenyon, Kettering, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Wittenberg, and Wooster

Early Action: Case Western Reserve, Ohio Wesleyan, Ursuline, and Xavier

(I cheated – they gave that to me so I didn’t have to look it up for you – I can look up any of the public schools if you would like to know if they have Early Decision or Early Action programs. Just let me know if you are interested.)

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