JRA Educational Consulting Blog

Last August 13^th, we posted a blog titled “Forget the Worm: The Early Bird Gets Admitted.” That’s why we’ve chosen our title here (“The Past as Prologue”), because what has already happened should dictate our current actions. Here’s the connection: In that blog, we detailed a long-term trend – what has been happening – favoring those who apply to colleges via Early Decision (ED) and Early Action (EA) over those who apply Regular Decision (RD). That trend has continued, and because ED and EA benefits both colleges and students in unique ways, there’s every reason to believe that it will continue – at an increasing pace – for the foreseeable future.

Topics: College Admission, College Application, College Counseling, College Planning, Early Decision, Early Action

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Most colleges¹ admit a far greater percentage of students who apply Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) than they do of students who apply Regular Decision (RD). In fact, an article posted on usnews.com in December 2010 contains data on 52 colleges for which that was true. At that time the increased chances of gaining admission to those colleges by applying ED or EA instead of RD ranged from 1.41 to 2.98 – or an average of 1.88. In short, students who applied ED or EA to those colleges were, on average, almost twice as likely to get accepted as were those who applied RD.

Topics: College Admission, College Counseling, Early Decision, Early Action

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