Ea / Ed ???

legend.dracula · 08-01-2008, 10:23 PM

Could anyone clarify the difference between EA and ED for me plz. I'm still confused between them :|

BZ-B · 08-01-2008, 10:33 PM

Early Action means if you are accepted you DONT necessarily have to go to the school. So you can apply to other early action colleges as well or choose not to attend and apply regular decision. Some schools have a single-choice EA which means you can only apply to their school early, but you arent forced to attend. (Basically Early Decision, except you can opt out)

Early Decision means if you are accepted, you MUST attend and withdraw from all other schools.

legend.dracula · 08-01-2008, 10:43 PM

thank for your reply
RD starts in Jan and ED starts in Nov. How about EA ?? Is it possible for me to apply for both ED AND EA ?

entomom · 08-01-2008, 10:46 PM

Another important implication of ED vs. EA is for FA. With ED, you are saying that you will attend if accepted, without seeing your FA offer. With EA, you can still go through the RD round, get FA packages from all schools that accept you, and compare them. You can even have your FA offer reevaluated if a peer school offers you a better package.

You can withdraw from your ED obligation under some financial circumstances, but I wouldn't recommend counting on doing so.

atrophicwhisper · 08-01-2008, 10:46 PM

@legend.dracula: Yes, though some colleges are a bit different. If you decide to apply EA/ED at some schools, they may not let you apply the opposite anywhere else.

For example, if you apply to Boston College under EA, you can't apply ED anywhere. You can, however, apply EA to other schools though.

BZ-B · 08-01-2008, 10:48 PM

No, you cant apply both ED & EA. ED requires you only apply to that one school.

atrophicwhisper · 08-01-2008, 10:49 PM

^ No, you can still apply ED somewhere and EA somewhere else. You just can't apply to more than one school ED.

gmitil10 · 08-01-2008, 10:53 PM

^^ Yea. Although there are a few exceptions (like Brown), the majority of ED schools will allow you to apply EA somewhere else (but not ED and SCEA).

legend.dracula · 08-01-2008, 10:58 PM

lol thanks
so I think I may need to ask the officers about the possibility to apply to ED and EA.
anyway when is the beginning of EA ?????? :-? does it start at the same time with ED ?

atrophicwhisper · 08-01-2008, 11:01 PM

^ Pretty much the same time as ED, yeah.

cptofthehouse · 08-01-2008, 11:02 PM

Early Decision is making a commitment with your application that you will go to the school if accepted. Most of the time, you can apply to other schools, but you promise to withdraw those apps if accepted by your ED school. There are some schools that do not want you to apply to early action schools if you apply ED to one of them, but that is rare. You cannot apply to more than one ED school at a time because you cannot keep a commitment to go to more than one school. However, there are schools that have what is called ED2 which is the same as the regular old ED but the due date of these apps is later. The same deal applies commitmentwise for ED2 as for ED1. This catches those kids who did not get into first ED choice and those who did not have an ED choice for the first wave of deadlines. ED1 apps are typically due by November and the answer come about a month or so later. ED2 typically has January deadlines with responces coming shortly thereafter.

EA has early deadlines, similar to ED but there is no commitment to accept the college offer and the student has until the universal May 1 deadline to decide. You just find out a lot earlier where you stand. There are schools that are single choice EA and will not permit other early apps including ED apps. You have to read the app rules carefully as there are a number of restrictions out there for EA apps, and also many unrestricted EA apps. Some don't permit ED if you apply EA, most do.

You then have rolling admissions which simply lets you know within a given number of weeks what your status is. The apps are read as they roll in. You can pair rolling with anything for the most part, but who knows what new rules are being made.

legend.dracula · 08-01-2008, 11:23 PM

lol now my mind is illuminated

because I'm not outstanding like genius so I want to maximize the chance to get in to good schools. I will pick a school that I most likely cannot get into :P for ED (hopefully not rejected) and some schools that are less competitive for EA to guarantee some choices for me. the last stage would be RD if I'm not comfortable with accepted EA colleges.
I guess those who are admitted to ED will have an easy senior huh :P cuz after the acceptance they don't have anything to worry about.

atrophicwhisper · 08-01-2008, 11:25 PM

^ Well, a college can rescind its offer of admittance, but it's really, really, really rare.