Updated February 10, 2025
Early Action vs. Regular Decision: How to Make the Right Choice
The differences between early action and regular decision can be confusing, and myths and misconceptions can cause you to miss out on opportunities to optimize your admissions chances by choosing the best option for you.
PrepMaven’s Ivy-League educated tutors have been providing top-quality, one-on-one admissions tutoring for over 20 years. Our students have been accepted through both early action and regular decision to top schools like Princeton, Harvard, Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, and other institutions around the country.
Drawing on our decades of experience, we’ve lined up the key information you need to know about the pros and cons of early action and regular decision and how to choose the right application strategy for you.
When you’re ready to work on strategizing and perfecting your application, reach out to our team for a free consultation!
Jump to section:
Early Action vs Regular Decision: At a Glance
What is Regular Decision?
What is Early Action?
Key dates and deadlines
Optimizing your application
How does Early Action affect your admissions chances?
What about financial aid?
How to choose: early action or regular decision
Next Steps
Early Action vs Regular Decision: At a Glance
- Early action and regular decision are two ways you can apply to college.
- The key difference is in the deadlines: regular decision deadlines are typically in early January, while early action means applying in October or November. You’ll also be notified of the decision earlier if you apply early action.
- Early action and regular decision are both non-binding admissions options. That means that if you’re accepted to a college or university, you don’t have to go there.
- If you apply through early action and are not admitted to your school(s) of choice, you can still apply to other schools in the regular decision round.
- Note that early action is not the same as early decision, which is a binding application system where you must attend a school if you’re admitted.
- A few schools offer restrictive or single-choice early action (REA), which means you can only apply early to one private school (you can still apply early to state schools).
- If you apply through early action, you should still prepare your backup application materials for the regular decision round before you’re notified of your early application decision.
What is Regular Decision?
“Regular decision” (RD) refers to the admissions cycle in which your application is considered.
- When you apply to college through Regular Decision, you’ll submit your application in the “regular” admissions cycle. That usually means a deadline in early January, although deadlines vary and some are later – so make sure to keep track of which deadlines apply to you.
- You’ll typically be notified of the admissions decision in March. You’ll get one of three possible decisions: acceptance, rejection, or waitlist.
- Regular Decision applications are non-binding, meaning you can apply to as many schools as you like in the Regular Decision cycle and select your top choice out of the schools where you’re admitted. You’ll need to make your final choice and accept or decline your offers of admission by May.
Since the Regular Decision cycle is generally your last chance to secure a college spot for the next fall semester, it’s important to apply to a range of schools in the RD round, including reach, match, and safety schools. Check out this post for more step-by-step instructions for making a college list.
What is Early Action?
- Early action (EA) is an option to apply to college in an earlier admissions cycle. If you apply early action, you’ll submit one or more college applications as early as October or November, instead of the regular decision deadline of January or February.
- You’ll also get a faster decision from the schools, often in December.
- The application you’ll submit for Early Action is the same as for Regular Decision. The difference is in the timing, not in the application materials that are required.
- The main meaningful difference in content is that your Regular Decision application will include senior fall midterm grades, and your Early Action application won’t yet have that information. Still, if you hit it out of the park in your senior fall classes, win a national award, or ace the SAT or ACT, you can often send an update to a school where you’ve applied EA.
- After you’ve submitted your early application, you’ll get one of three decisions from the admissions office: acceptance, rejection, or deferral. If you were deferred, your application will be considered again in the regular decision round, and you’ll be notified of the final outcome in the spring: acceptance, rejection, or waitlist.
Early action is not binding, so you’re not making a commitment to attend a certain school just by applying early. (Note that this is different from early decision, which is a separate process.)
This means that after applying early action to one or more schools, you can still apply in the regular decision round to as many schools as you want, no matter what the outcome of your early application was.
One advantage of this is that, if you’re accepted early, you can save the money and time involved in applying to a longer list of schools — and if you’re not accepted, you can still apply to more schools in the regular decision round.
This is especially helpful for financial aid. If you’re accepted through early action but want the chance to compare financial aid packages, you can apply to other schools in regular decision and take the various financial aid offers into account when making your final decision about where to matriculate.
You can generally apply to as many schools as you want through EA, but there are a handful of exceptions. A few schools practice what’s called single-choice or restrictive early action programs, which limit the number of other private colleges you can apply to early.
Schools with restrictive EA programs include Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Caltech, and Notre Dame.
If you’re applying to one of these schools through restrictive early action, you can’t apply to another private school early, but you can still apply early to as many public universities as you like.
Key dates and deadlines
Deadlines for both EA and RD application vary, so make sure to check which deadlines apply to you.
As you make your college list, it’s helpful to keep track of your admissions deadlines in a table like this one.
| College or University | Early Action Deadline | Regular Decision Deadline |
| Princeton University | November 1 | January 1 |
| University of Pennsylvania | November 1 | January 5 |
| University of Virginia | November 1 | January 5 |
| University of Michigan | October 1 | February 1 |
| Notre Dame | November 1 | January 3 |
Optimizing your application
No matter when you choose to apply, you want to be sure that your application is as strong as it can be.
That means maximizing your grades and standardized test scores, crafting application essays that will stand out from the pile, and making sure your application materials reflect your best qualities.
All of these are areas where a skilled, experienced tutor can make the difference.
PrepMaven offers high-quality, one-on-one tutoring in all areas that are part of your college application, from help with academic subjects, to SAT and ACT training, to support with your college application essays.
Almost all our tutors are Ivy League grads, and they know from personal as well as professional experience what you need for a stand-out application.
For SAT tutoring, students often see a score increase of as much as 100-300 points over a few months of tutoring. That could be enough to make the difference between a rejection and an acceptance at your dream school.
And our academic, test prep, and essay support has helped students gain admission to their ideal college matches, including Princeton, Notre Dame, and public and private schools around the country.
If you’re ready to take your application to the next level, contact our team for a free consultation and get matched with an Ivy League tutor today.
How does Early Action affect your admissions chances?
Students often believe that applying early will drastically improve their chances of getting into their dream school.
We broke down admissions data for several top schools to see how your admissions odds for early action really compare to regular decision.
- At the University of Virginia, one of the country’s top-ranked public universities, the acceptance rate for early-action applicants in 2022-23 was 32%. Compared to the overall acceptance rate of only 19%, this is a big jump – especially when you consider that that 19% figure also includes the students who got in early.
- Last year, for the Class of 2028, Harvard’s early acceptance rate was 8.74%, compared to a Regular Decision rate of 2.70%.
- At Notre Dame, 15% of Class of 2028 early applicants were accepted last year, compared to 8.6% in Regular Decision.
It’s true that for various reasons, acceptance rates in the early round tend to be higher than in regular decision.
For one thing, students who apply EA may be a self-selecting stronger applicant pool.
Since applying EA means getting your application materials ready months earlier than usual, those students might already be more competitive and well-prepared, and may be more set on producing the best application possible.
Unfortunately, though, applying EA is not a guarantee of admission.
The bottom line is that whether you’re applying EA or RD, your application needs to be strong enough to meet or exceed the school’s expectations.
If your GPA and standardized test scores aren’t at or above the average for admitted students at your school of choice, then applying Restrictive Early Action will unlikely give you enough of an edge to overcome that.
If your scores are holding you back from being competitive at your ideal school, you may want to hold off on applying EA and instead use your senior fall to work on raising your grades and scores. Then you’ll ultimately be more competitive when applying in the RD round.
After all, submitting a stronger application is the best way to raise your odds of getting in – not just deciding when to hit submit.
What about financial aid?
In both the Early Action and Regular Decision application cycles, you can apply for financial aid, and if you’re accepted, you’ll receive a financial aid offer.
Because these are non-binding admissions options, you’re free to compare different financial aid packages and choose the one that works best for you and your family.
You can also apply to one or more schools through EA and then, if you want to try to secure a better financial aid offer, apply to more schools through RD.
How to choose: Early Action or Regular Decision
EA could be right for you if:
- You’ve had time to produce a great application by the earlier deadline (including securing letters of recommendation and any supplementary materials, like an arts supplement).
- Your GPA and test scores are in line with or above the average for admitted students at your top-choice school.
- You know you’ll feel less stressed if you have one application off your desk by October or November.
- You have one or two top-choice schools and you want to get a decision from them before investing the time and money in applying to a wider range of programs.
EA might not be ideal for you if:
- You want to use your senior fall to bring your grades and scores more in line with the typical admitted student profile at the school you’re targeting.
- You’re feeling rushed to complete your application by the EA deadline and know you could submit a stronger application by the regular deadline.
- You’re submitting supplemental materials, like an arts supplement, and need time to prepare those extra application components.
Remember that if you’re deferred or not admitted under EA, you won’t have much time to prepare new applications for the RD round. EA decisions often come out in mid-December, with some RD deadlines as early as January 1.
If you’re already disappointed by a rejection or deferral, the last thing you‘ll feel like doing is working on a whole pile of new applications.
That’s why it’s essential to have backup applications ready for the regular decision round, just in case. Start writing your Regular Decision applications before you get a decision on any Early Action applications.
In the best-case scenario, you won’t even have to submit them, and if you do need them, they’ll be ready to submit with minimal extra stress.
Next Steps
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for applying to college. Whether EA or RD is right for you depends on your personal situation and goals.
Once you’re ready to take the next steps in the application process, an experienced tutor can help you reach your goals – whether that means improving your SAT or ACT score, academic support for a particular class, or support with your college essays.
Nearly all PrepMaven tutors are Ivy League grads, with a handful of highly qualified tutors from other top-30 universities. They’ve been in your shoes, so they know from experience how to demystify the application process.
Reach out to our team for a free chat about your situation and to find a tutor match who can help you get ready to apply!
Related Posts
- How Colleges Read your College Applications (A 4-Step Process)
- 15 Best College Essay Services (40 Services Reviewed)
- How to Answer the UC Personal Insight Questions
- The Diamond Strategy: How We Help Students Write College Essays that Get Them Into Princeton (And Other Ivy League Schools)
- How to Format Your College Essay
- 15 College Essays That Worked
- The 15 Best Online SAT Tutoring Services
- What’s a Good SAT Score?
- The 12 Best SAT Prep Courses
- Hardest SAT Math Questions
Ro
Rosamond graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. During college, she worked as a peer tutor for Italian, French, Greek, and academic writing. Since graduation, she’s continued to tutor students of all ages in French, Italian, Latin, English, and math, some of them for several years. She’s currently a graduate student studying the relationship between religion and secular law, and she works as a freelance journalist and translator.