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Early Notification Dates By Schools
Many colleges, including a significant number of highly selective colleges, offer Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) application options, with a handful of schools offering both EA and ED.
Typically notification dates for ED are in early or late December.
EA notifications often go out in mid-December, but sometimes a couple weeks later, and can vary by school or in a given year.
At schools offering both EA and ED options, ED notifications typically go out in mid-December, but EA notification dates may trail a couple weeks, or more, behind.
Restrictive Early Action (REA), sometimes called Single-choice Early Action, is offered only by a handful of elite colleges, such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Georgetown, Yale, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Notre Dame. REA notifications typically go out in mid-December.
EA is a good way to spotlight your enthusiasm for a specific school and your early readiness, and it doesn’t impose any binding commitment, the way an ED application does. You can apply to multiple schools as an EA applicant, if you’re not applying REA (or Single-Choice EA).
Even though there’s no binding commitment, you still get notified of admissions decisions much earlier than any of your peers who are applying in Regular Decision rounds, and it may give your odds for admissions a boost.
For EA admissions you typically need to apply by November 1st.
EA notification dates typically fall between mid-December and mid-January, but notification dates vary based on the school, and sometimes from year to year. Remember, as an EA applicant, if you do receive an offer from the school, you’re NOT bound by any commitments.
REA requires a student to sign a form that they will not apply for early admissions at any other school — but there can be exceptions for applying to a public university or a foreign university. Like EA, REA does NOT involve any binding commitments if the applicant is accepted.
The REA application deadline is typically November 1st.
REA notifications typically happen in mid-December. Remember, if you’re accepted, there’s NO commitment to accept the offer.
ED is a consequential application strategy, because it involves you, the student, making a binding commitment to attend the university you’re applying to if accepted. That means, in addition to needing to meet the early application deadline, students who apply ED somewhere cannot apply to any other school on an ED basis, with very few exceptions. And, if accepted, you’re also committing to accept the school’s offer, which can limit options down the road for entertaining both other admissions offers as well as any accompanying financial aid offer.
For ED applications the deadline is usually November 1st. ED notifications typically go out in mid- or late-December, but dates can vary from school to school, or from year to year. And, remember, if you’re accepted, that is now a binding decision for you, the student.
Many schools also offer second-round ED application options and timelines. Just like all other ED applications, Round 2 ED applications are binding — so you can’t apply to any other schools as an ED applicant, and if you’re admitted, you must attend.
Round 2 application deadlines are later, usually between Jan 1. And Feb. 1 of your senior year. Round 2 ED notifications are also later, and typically go out mid-February to mid-March.
UNIVERSITY | ACTION | ESTIMATED NOTIFICATION DATE |
---|---|---|
Brown | ED | December 13th 2024 |
Columbia | ED | December 17th 2024 |
Cornell | ED | December 12th 2024 |
Dartmouth | ED | December 17th 2024 |
Duke | ED | December 14th 2024 |
Georgetown | EA | December 13th 2024 |
Harvard | REA | December 17th 2024 |
John Hopkins | ED 1 / ED 2 | December 13th 2024 / February 14th 2025 |
MIT | EA | December 16th 2024 |
Northwestern | ED | December 17th 2024 |
Princeton | REA | December 17th 2024 |
Rice | ED | December 14th 2024 |
Stanford University | REA | December 17th 2024 |
University of Chicago | ED 1 and EA / ED 2 | December 16th 2024 / February 14th 2025 |
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | EA | Mid to Late January 2025 |
University of Notre Dame | REA | December 13th 2024 |
University of Pennsylvania | ED | December 17th 2024 |
University of Southern California | EA | January 17th 2025 |
University of Texas, Austin | Priority | February 1st 2025 |
University of Virginia | ED / EA | December 13th 2024 / January 31st 2025 |
Vanderbilt University | ED 1 / ED 2 | December 13th 2024 / Mid-February 2025 |
Washington University in St. Louis | ED 1 / ED 2 | December 13th 2024 / February 7th 2025 |
Yale University | SCEA (REA) | December 17th 2024 |
*Notification dates are estimates based on previous years release dates
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