I was going to apply Early Decision to a college on November 15. I was all prepared; my Common Application was done, I had finished the college’s supplemental essays, and I had filled out the financial aid forms. But something felt wrong. This year, I have to decide where to spend the next four years of my life, and it didn’t feel good to give up so much power over that decision. After a last-minute, second visit to the school, I decided I wasn’t ready to commit. I switched my application type to Regular Decision, and the November 15 deadline passed.
Early Decision is a type of college application. When a student applies Early Decision to a college, they agree that if they get accepted, they will withdraw all their other applications and enroll at that school. Students can only apply Early Decision to one school, and the deadline to apply is earlier than for Regular Decision, usually November 1.
In my experience, the apprehension that I felt about Early Decision is not uncommon. “I decided to apply Early Decision because my parents thought it was the only way I could get into the colleges I was interested in,” said senior Amelia Kaye, “I never found a school that I was a hundred percent excited about, so I was really stressed about the commitment.”
This anxiety that students feel about applying is one indication that Early Decision benefits universities much more than it benefits students. The biggest advantage of Early Decision is that it can increase your chances of getting accepted. Schools want to maximize the percentage of accepted students who end up attending, which they call their “yield”, because a high yield shows that they are a lot of students’ top choice. So they are incentivized to accept many of their incoming class from Early Decision, because all those students will attend, which will increase their yield. If you search the Early Decision acceptance rates and the Regular Decision acceptance rates of various colleges, there’s often a staggering difference. According to the admissions consulting firm Ivy Coach, Brown University’s Early Decision acceptance rate for the class of 2024 was 17.9%, versus a 4.01% acceptance rate for Regular Decision.
But depending on the school, Early Decision might not be as advantageous as it seems. Students recruited for college sports are told to apply Early Decision and are almost always accepted, so they inflate the acceptance rate. Students with legacy do the same. At my last-minute visit to the school I was considering applying Early Decision to, I was told by an admissions officer that Early Decision there is actually much less helpful than it seems, because the school is small and has a high percentage of student athletes.
However, even if Early Decision was as advantageous as it claims to be, it shouldn’t exist. It is an anti-competitive business strategy that increases prices and disadvantages low-income students. Early Decision increases a student’s chances of getting accepted. Still, it’s a commitment that can only be made by those who have no interest in comparing financial aid offers from multiple schools. Only wealthy students benefit from the increased Early Decision acceptance rates, and lower-income students who can apply only through Regular Decision are then forced to compete for fewer spots in these schools’ incoming classes. Speaking about the discrimination inherent in this process, senior Eleanor Chew commented, “I think that early decision is unfair to low-income students. I’m sure there are many students who would have liked to apply Early Decision for a higher acceptance rate but couldn’t in fear of not receiving enough aid.”
According to an article published in August, “Lawsuit Accuses 32 Elite Colleges of Early Decision Admissions Conspiracy”, in Forbes Magazine, a class-action lawsuit was filed in August in the US District Court of Massachusetts against 32 colleges and universities that offer Early Decision. The lawsuit was filed by four current and former students, and it describes Early Decision as a practice that “entrenches patterns of inequality of access while inflating the price of attendance,” and calls it “a horizontal agreement to reduce or eliminate competition.” The plaintiffs argue that Early Decision violates antitrust laws. They’re right- it’s an agreement between similar schools not to compete for customers who they would otherwise be competing with each other for. This allows them to raise tuition prices because they do not need to incentivize students to choose them over other schools. If you apply Early Decision, that college literally has no reason to give you any more than the bare minimum amount of need-based or merit-based aid.
Of course, for some students, Early Decision is absolutely worth it. If you have a clear top choice, you can easily afford the tuition; your chances of getting accepted in Regular Decision are low; and your application is already the best it will ever be by November, then Early Decision makes perfect sense. And if you can get your application in by November, you may be done with applications by December, and not have to write any more essays. Senior Jasmine Wallis said, “My main reason for applying Early Decision was because of the decision date. I thought knowing so soon would help me with figuring out which routes to take next.” Though this logic does make sense, many more students apply Early Decision than those who fit all those descriptors, because colleges and high schools promote Early Decision more than they should. Colleges do so to increase their yield while winning thousands of students to whom they can give as little financial aid as possible, and high schools do so to increase the number of their students who get into prestigious colleges. Before you apply Early Decision, I urge you to consider if you can genuinely afford the ticket price of the school, if you can realistically perfect your application by November, and if you truly have one absolute favorite college.
I’m very glad I didn’t apply Early Decision. I’ve made my application much better since November, and I’ve already changed my mind a little bit about the type of college experience I want. I do feel like I’m being disadvantaged compared to other applicants, though, and that’s a testament to how elite colleges take advantage of students’ insecurities to pressure them into committing to Early Decision.
