Application Strategy · Part 2

Early Applications, Explained

A deep dive into the three early application types — Early Decision, Restrictive Early Action, and Early Action — and how to use them strategically.

Summarizing the Part 1 Timeline, there were mainly two windows for college applications:

Window 1, also known as the Early Window (Oct 15 – Nov 1). This is when students apply for Early Decision I, Early Action, Restrictive Early Action.
Window 2 or II, also known as the Regular Window (January 1–15, some as late as February 1). This is when students apply for regular applications, along with Early Decision II, Early Action II, and Restrictive Early Action II applications.
There's now a new window I call Window 0 (Sept 1 – Oct 15). This is a new window as of 2024–25 and is still very niche, associated with special applications like UChicago's SSEN, which require students to first attend a UChicago summer program in their 10th or 11th grade summer.

We don't get to decide outright to apply a certain type of application to each college. The colleges will announce each season which type(s) of applications they will offer. I say 95% of the time, the colleges don't change around much. But in 2025, Rice decided to add ED II, while Carnegie Mellon decided to drop ED II. Additionally, in 2026, USC is offering ED, while in the past they've been offering Merit-based EA and ED only to Marshall business school majoring students. Point is, it can change, and we'll know what each college offers as they officially announce them or when the applications fully refresh typically in July or August.

To see the list of colleges, their tiers, and early application types that I try my best to maintain, check here: LINK TO COLLEGE TIER LIST.

Window I

Window I: The Early Window Applications

Typically the deadline for Early Applications is November 1st, but there can be accelerated deadlines like October 15th depending on art/music portfolio requirements. Some public schools (UNC Chapel Hill, UT-Austin, Gtech) can have Early Action deadlines on October 15th as well, and are subject to eligibility requirements, like being a state resident.

It's also when the UC's and CSU's are due. Despite having deadlines in the Early Window 1, they do not offer early applications.

Lastly, there are several merit-based scholarship application deadlines due in the Early Window 1 (ie Vanderbilt, URochester, Rutgers). Some colleges will pair their Early Action application with merit-based scholarship applications, meaning students will have to apply to the Early Action application for merit scholarship consideration (ie, UMaryland, USC). Often paired with this notion is another deadline type: priority deadline. These will have early deadlines and be associated with merit-scholarship applications or residency requirements.

Because there are multiple factors that go into identifying the deadline of each choice, I assign a deadline harvesting assignment for students in July/August when the applications are announced and fully refreshed for the oncoming application season. A common mistake is relying on the Commonapp, simple Google search, or even a cursory check on the college's admission website to determine deadlines. Misassuming a deadline is a critical mistake and one I see too often made by students who do not properly conduct the deadline harvesting steps.

Deadline Harvesting Checklist

Am I applying early to the college? · Do they have a merit or priority deadline? · Are there any portfolio submission deadlines? · Are there any special program deadlines (ie BSMD, Dental Accelerated, Dual Degree)?

In the Early Window, there are three main types of Early Applications:

Type 1

Early Decision

BindingSomewhat Restrictive

+10–15% boost

If accepted, you must attend. You may stack as many EAs as you like alongside one ED choice.

Type 2

Restrictive Early Action

Non-BindingVery Restrictive

+5–10% boost

If accepted, you're not obligated to go. But you may only stack Public EAs and Merit EAs alongside one REA.

Type 3

Early Action

Non-BindingNot Restrictive

+0–5% boost

Get your applications done early and await an early result. Think of EAs as sprinkles on top of an ED choice.

Early Decision

ED is Binding and Somewhat Restrictive.

Binding means if you get accepted you have to go. In my entire career, I've only seen/assisted a client renege from a binding contract twice — both times were legitimate reasons that had to do with a family losing income because the family business entered bankruptcy and a mother who was diagnosed with a serious condition that compelled the student to stay closer to home.

The Restrictive characteristic refers to how many other early applications can you simultaneously apply to? ED generally disallows you from simultaneously applying to other ED and Restrictive Early Action programs.

This means you can apply to:

A typical ED stack looks like this

One ED Columbia, Duke, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn, Brown, Northwestern, Pomona…

As many EAs as you like MIT, UChicago, USC Merit, Gtech, UMich-Ann Arbor, etc.

Note: Georgetown says they're an EA, but when you read the details, they behave more like a REA, so it is usually excluded.

These characteristics make ED applications arguably the strongest leverage you can pull, boosting your chances +10–15%. AND, it means you can stack a bunch of earlies together (see: MIT, UChicago!).

+10–15% may not seem like a lot, but it is. Say you have a 5% chance regular to Cornell. By applying ED to it as a competitive applicant, your chances can rise to 15–20%. Instead of a 1 out of 20 chance, you now have a 1 out of 5 chance. Now, we can't just blindly assume that anyone who applies ED has an increased chance of admission. While the ED applicant pool has less students, the students in it tend to be much more competitive. So to make sure you're not over-reaching and properly capitalizing on the ED boost in chance, we have to make sure you're a competitive applicant in that college's early pool.

Results for ED typically come out around mid to end of December. Here, you can get Accepted, Rejected, or Deferred.

Result	What it means
Accepted	You will be asked to commit right away as per the binding agreement, after which you will be done with the college application process and season. Yes, you'll have to continue to maintain your academic and extracurricular standing, but otherwise you are set. You can get your acceptance rescinded for multiple reasons, namely a stark drop-off in academic performance or a poor decision that leads to disciplinary actions like suspensions. Additionally, if you get accepted to an ED, then you wouldn't be able to consider any of the EAs you also applied to.
Rejected	You will not be able to reapply to that same college in the regular window. It is effectively over, and you will have to move on. Appealing rejections is extremely unlikely, unless there were significant errors or misunderstandings in your application (ie your high school counselor sent the wrong transcript of a student with the same exact name but with a much lower GPA).
Deferred	You will be given the option to apply to the regular window, and granted the opportunity to update the college with additional information. Is being deferred a good sign? Are my chances higher than a regular student if I'm deferred? These are questions that have a lot more nuance than what I typically see online sources express, and may be material for another post in the future. The simple answer is it depends on the college and the student, and I would caution anyone from taking singular stats like the acceptance rate of deferred students versus regular students at face value.

In both rejected and deferred cases, if you simultaneously applied and got accepted to EAs, you would still have acquired some acceptances that hopefully would mitigate any concerns or anxieties, especially if those EA acceptances were top choices like MIT or UChicago.

I personally recommend ED the most. It can warrant discussions about financial feasibility/commitment and other more case-by-case factors, but the boost in chance is really hard for me to discard if the objective is to maximize one's chances of getting in.

Restrictive Early Action

REA is Non-binding and Very Restrictive.

Non-binding means if you get accepted, you don't have to go. You can pocket that acceptance and apply to other regular colleges in the Regular Window II, wait for all the results to come out in March and then make your final decision in May.

REAs are the most restrictive type of early. They do not allow you to apply simultaneously to other EDs, REAs, and non-merit, private Early Actions. This leaves mainly Public Early Action and Merit-based Early Action applications. As a result, REAs boost your chances, but not as much as EDs. I estimate it's around +5–10%.

A common REA strategy looks something like this

One REA Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale

Public & Merit EAs only USC Merit, Gtech, UMich-Ann Arbor, etc.

Note: the key exclusions are MIT and UChicago, as they are private EAs.

REAs typically will come out like EDs in mid to late December, but some I've seen come out as late as the end of January. The subsequent scenario upon receiving an acceptance to REA is the same as receiving an acceptance to ED, except that you have to decide whether you will continue to endeavor towards completing regular applications in the hopes of gaining acceptances to increase your choices come final decision/commitment to one college in May.

In practice, REAs are for the high reachers. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are all REAs. I think of them as "Hey, you don't have to come if you don't want to. But if you're going to apply to us early, we want you to only apply to us early (and other public EAs and Merit EAs)." If you are a competitive applicant and your dream school is Stanford, then I would say your best chances of getting into Stanford is by applying REA. There are additional factors to consider now that I bring that point up. What if 10 other top students at my high school are also applying REA to Stanford and half of them have legacy tags and two are already accepted through athletic recruitment? I run into these scenarios every year, and as a result do spend more time diving into the nuances. Suffice to say, there's a reason why many families will toil over the early strategy. We don't have to know or decide on what our early strategy will be until June, I say. In June, I want to get started on brainstorming and drafting the early college essays. Prior to that, in March, we start on the main essays (UC's and Commonapp Personal Essay 650w), and await how final grades, test scores, and summer plans pan out.

Early Action

EAs are Non-binding and Not Restrictive (with the rare exception of colleges like Georgetown).

You work on getting the essays and applications done early and await an early result, which comes out later than ED and REA results, typically around the end of January through February. I'm tempted more and more each year to say that EA's don't boost your chances at all, so I label them with a +0–5% boost in chance. I even read what I like to call "FUD" (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) articles parents/students encounter about how actually applying EA lowers one's chances of getting in. Again, there's nuance that is missing in taking one flat statistic and jumping to a conclusion, and may be a topic for another post.

I think of them like sprinkles that you put on top of an ED choice. EAs are great at adding additional reaches, targets, and safeties to your early window. Not much else I feel like I need to add here that I haven't already expressed in the ED section above.

If you're going to apply REA, we need to distinguish the types of EAs into Private EAs, Public EAs, and Merit EAs, because REAs only allow you to stack Public EAs and Merit EAs, as explained in the REA section above.

Window II

Window II: The Regular Window Applications

In the Regular Window, also known as Window II, we have the opportunity to apply ED II, REA II, and EA II. I personally find the nomenclature choice to add "Early" into these application types often misleads and confuses. It is NOT an Early Window I application. It is a Regular Window application but with the same application characteristics, like Binding/Non-binding and varying degrees of restrictiveness.

So, a ED II choice is a regular application, but with the same Binding and Somewhat Restrictive clauses. Likewise, a REA II choice is also a regular application, but with the same Non-binding and Very Restrictive characteristics. I don't really cover EA II much, because I don't find them to offer enough value or advantage for us to be concerning ourselves with incorporating them. Critically, the ED II and REA II choices I see offer the same boost in chances (+10–15% for ED II and 5–10% for REA II).

I see students capitalizing on the ED II choices the most. There are some really good colleges that offer it (Johns Hopkins, UChicago, Vanderbilt, lots of S-Tier liberal arts colleges, Rice, etc.). Here are two scenarios I encounter most:

Scenario 1

Student applied ED I or REA I and got deferred/rejected, and would happily commit to an ED II choice and jump on the opportunity to get the +10–15% boost.

Scenario 2 — The V-Shape Recovery

Student is striving for a V-shape recovery, boosting their GPA through to the end of 1st semester senior year, and wants to combine the peak of GPA strength with a Binding agreement boost. The Early Window I only makes available grades up until the end of 2nd semester junior year, but Regular Window II technically allows most students to send their 1st semester of senior year final grades. This can be a game-changer, and is often the strategy that I see results in impressive results.

Window 0

Window 0: The New Super Early Window Applications

Window 0 is new and niche. The only college I have experience with and have helped a student to gain admission to is UChicago, so for Window 0, I'll write exclusively on UChicago's application process. If you're interested in UChicago and want to 10x your chances of getting in, you should read this.

UChicago began its Summer Student Early Notification (SSEN) option for undergraduate admission for fall 2024. This is essentially an Early Decision 0 option — the first of its kind for Top 20 universities. Unlike ED 1 or ED 2, application submissions are earlier (September 1 to October 15) and is only made available as an option for students who complete any of UChicago's Pre-College Summer Session programs to apply. This means that students must've attended one of UChicago's qualifying summer programs in their 10th or 11th grade summer.

It also means that the student would have to perform well throughout the summer program. UChicago summer instructors will keep a record of the student's performance and class contributions, meaning the student must showcase a degree of maturity in the form of intellectual curiosity and communication skills.

The summer program applications occur through the first quarter of 2026, and will cost from $2,500 to $14,000.

This year, one of my students was able to successfully gain acceptance, and was able to provide us with some very interesting information about the program. Thanks to him, we have some more data on this unique acceptance pathway.

~10x

The expected acceptance rate overall for UChicago is 3.9%. However, the ED 0 acceptance is 25–30%. That is nearly a 10x increased chance of admission.

Misc. Data — 2025–2026 Cycle

21,000

Early Apps Total So Far

~1,000

ED0 Applications

99%

of Admits in the Top 10% of the Class (GPA-wise)

1533

Average SAT · 33 Average ACT

40 First Gen Admits in Total.

Top Regions of Accepted ED 0 Students

Region	Acceptances
New York	64
California	56
Illinois	19
New Jersey	18
Texas	17
Massachusetts	17
Florida	15

Top International (Double-Digit Acceptances)

UK · China · Brazil

Conclusion

Putting It All Together

We covered a lot of ground here. The three application windows each carry their own deadlines, application types, and strategic implications. Within Window I, the three early application types — ED, REA, and EA — are not interchangeable. ED gives you the most leverage and lets you stack EAs on top. REA is non-binding but locks out private EAs like MIT and UChicago. EAs are best thought of as coverage you layer on top of a primary early strategy. And in Window II, ED II remains one of the most underutilized tools I see — particularly for students executing a V-shape recovery.

Window 0 is still new, still niche, and still one of the most remarkable pathways I've seen emerge in recent years. If UChicago is on your list and you haven't considered the SSEN route, it's worth a serious conversation.

In Part 3, I'll cover how to actually build a college list — how many colleges you should apply to, how to think about structuring your choices across tiers, and I'll showcase an example of a full college list build for an S-Tier student.