Early cycles?

In response to a comment on this blog I thought I would talk about early admission to US universities.

Typically for many US universities they have 2 cycles of admission, the earlier one called early action/decision and the 2nd one called regular decision. Okay I will go on to explain the two cycles.

There are broadly 2 kinds of early cycles: early decision and early action. Early cycles require you to hand in your application to them by November 1st, and they inform you of their decision (accepted, rejected or deferred) by December 15. So all's good right, you get to know your decision early (which was how I got to know about my admission to Stanford) and admission rates tend to be higher (sometimes up to twice the typical rate). But what is the tradeoff?

Early decision is practiced by certain ivies such as Cornell and Columbia. Early decision is binding, meaning if you get into the school you have to go unless you meet extenuating circumstances, i.e. you dont have enough finances etc. So this means that:
1. You only apply ED if you are sure that is your 1st choice school or you will regret it later on,
2. You can only apply to 1 school in ED.

Early action is non-binding, which means that you can submit your application early and know the school's decision early without being "forced" to enrol if they do accept you. Some schools practise too, like U-Michigan.

So why are admit rates higher in the early round? This is because of 2 reasons:
1. In ED, you have indicated to the school that they are your 1st choice school, and this cant work unfavourably can it.
2. People apply to ED because they believe their current qualifications are enough to get them through. In the Singaporean context, people trust that their prelim results are good enough and they dont need to add additional CIP hours or things like that over the holidays. --> That means you are up against stiffer competition, and if the overall quality of the applicant pool is better in the early cycle obviously colleges would want to accept more people.
3. Similar to the point above, people who apply through the early cycle have started preparing their application quite some time before the deadline and they are confident enough about their essays to submit it up. It doesnt necessarily mean better essays, but it means better preparation instead of being a super last minute straggler.

Some schools like Harvard have done away with their early decision/action programme and simply have a regular cycle.

Some schools, like Stanford and Yale, practise an early cycle in between ED and EA, called Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) or Restrictive Choice Early Action (RCEA). It is non-binding and you submit your application by November 1st as well, but you can only apply SCEA to 1 school. --> meaning no EDs as well.

The regular cycle, is simply the regular cycle. You submit your apps to any amount of schools you want and their decisions will come out sometime in early April.

Dont even think of cheating, because they will find out, and when they do any admission will be rescinded. So dont even try.

My opinion on whether you should apply through the early cycles is as follows.
If you view yourself as:
1. A very qualified applicant.
Go for ED / EA if you possibly can and if your applications are solid.
2. An average applicant.
It depends on how confident you are of your essays, your qualifications and the school which you are applying to. If you are pretty confident you might want to try ED/EA - especially if you are applying to a mid range school - because there is less competition from your peers. But if it's a top school I really dont know - it's your call - because on 1 hand you may appear inferior to other applicants and be rejected immediately, but on the other hand there is twice the admit rate so you may make it through.

*It is worthy to note that all colleges say that if they reject you in the ED/EA round, it probably means you would have been rejected in the regular round as well, because if they are unable to make a recommendation for you they would have deferred you instead of accepting/rejecting.
**However I feel that it doesnt do you any favours to be put in a pile of applicants that seem more qualified than yours.
***Some colleges have a history of deferring large numbers of applicants and some have a history of not deferring very many applicants. -- which may tip the scales (to your advantage or disadvantage) to an admit or rejected should you apply early

My overall conclusion is to PLAN EARLY for whichever colleges you want to go to because experience tells me that many of you are going to be very last minute about your essays. I personally started writing my essays in July and made sure I finished everything by early October.

"The first 250 essays will be more enjoyable than the last 250 essays" - by some admit officer which I cant remember.