"ONCE UPON A TIME THERE were only two kinds of ‘early’ options when it came to applying to college, and each school offered only one, if any: early decision, where students applied to one school in November, got a reply by mid-December, and were bound to attend if they were accepted; and early action, where the timing was similar but no commitment was required.
3 Reasons to Apply Early Action
But in the past decade, the permutations have multiplied. Now they include everything from two rounds of early decision (such as at Bates College in Maine and Emory University in Georgia) to a combination of both early decision and early action (Tulane University in Louisiana, the University of Chicago and Fordham University in New York, for example). A number of schools even offer a newer hybrid called restrictive early action, where students typically can only apply early to one institution without having to commit." …