So What Happened on November 1st?
By ABBY FOSTER ‘19
During the last few weeks of October, members of class IV, III, and II likely heard seniors mention the date “November 1st” with a tone of resigned despair. Teachers also knew about this deadline—some assigned less work for seniors, or at least made sure few major assignments were due on this day. Some Milton students, however, may have been unsure of what this day signified. November 1st was the day that the majority of Early Decision or Early Action college applications were due.
What are ED and EA applications, and what is the difference between them? The College Board explains that Early Decisions are binding, meaning that accepted ED applicants must attend the said college. Early Action plans are the early, non-binding options for students: responses for which students have until May 1st to decide. Both of these options differ from Regular Decision, which many see as the standard decision process. Regular applications are typically due sometime in early January.
PrepScholar’s 2018 list of ED schools names over 240 schools that provide applicants with the ED option, and the College Board states that around 450 schools have either ED or EA options. Due to the large number of schools that offer ED and EA, many students consider these options in their application process. There are also some more nuanced choices, like ED II (another binding application, although it’s due in January instead of November) and Restrictive EA (an application for a school that does not offer ED, and if you apply EA to that school, they restrict where else you can apply to in the EA pool), though ED and EA are the most common.
Some students believe that applying early will increase their odds of acceptance. A 2017 article from usnews.com notes that, “qualified ED applicants can sometimes gain an advantage because they are expressing the strongest possible interest in the university,” but also acknowledges that the decision still depends on a vast number of different factors. According to U.S. News data, the average ED acceptance rate for the top 20 National Liberal Arts Colleges was “38.8 percent for fall 2016, compared with an 18.8 percent average general acceptance rate.” The Princeton Review writes that two main advantages of applying early are that it can “show you’re serious” and “cut down on admissions stress.”
When you apply early, you’ll either get accepted, denied, or deferred. If you’re accepted to your ED school, you’re committed to going there in the fall; if you’re accepted to your EA school, you’re not committed to going there but you have a guaranteed spot. If you’re rejected from an ED or EA school, that’s it—your application process with that school is finished. However, if you get differed from an ED or EA school, your application will be put in the regular pool to be reevaluated later in the process. When colleges send their decisions for students who applied in the regular pool, students who got differed will find out if they’ve been accepted or rejected.
For many, applying early can be the scariest part of the application process; many students apply early to their “dream school,” so they’ll be avidly awaiting the outcome of early decisions. Now that the November 1st deadline has past, most seniors have submitted at least one application. While the college process still isn’t over, seniors should be proud of passing this milestone and take a well-deserved break from some of the stress that’s been dogging them for the past few weeks.