Many schools who offer both merit and ED require all applicants who are interested in receiving any merit to apply very near the EA deadline and before the RD deadline. This allows schools to essentially review the whole merit pool prior to handing out ED and RD decisions and helps applicants who are interested in applying ED know their out of pocket cost prior to enrolling but does not allow ED applicants to “shop” awards to see if they get better financial offers elsewhere which seems fair. Students who are not comfortable with the risk can apply RD.