About 10% of colleges and universities in the U.S. give students the option to apply and receive an admissions decision early, either through early decision or early action.
And there are many reasons to do so. Early applicants tend to have higher acceptance rates, and students who get accepted early don’t have to worry about waiting for decisions throughout their entire senior year.
While college applicants may feel tempted to apply for a school via early decision and finish the application process sooner than later, it’s important to consider several factors before committing. Since early decision is a binding commitment to a school, it’s important to be certain that you want to attend that school if you get accepted.
Here are three reasons experts say you might want to skip the early applications and wait for the regular deadline:
— You’re not ready to apply yet.
— You need to compare financial aid options.
— You aren’t sure a particular college is your top choice.
You’re Not Ready To Apply Yet
Early decision deadlines usually fall on Nov. 1 or Nov. 15. November comes fast when you’re working on preparing personal statements, writing supplemental essays and gathering letters of recommendation.
[Read: Examples of College Recommendation Letters That Impressed Schools.]
If you have to rush to gather all of your materials by the early deadline, it may be better to hold off and wait for the regular deadline.
It’s also important to consider the fact that colleges will be able to view only the first three years of your academic record when you apply early, notes Evelyn Thimba, vice president of undergraduate enrollment management at American University in Washington, D.C. That means if your grades improve significantly or if you make any meaningful accomplishments during the fall semester of your senior year, the college you’re applying to early may not be able to factor that into its decision.
“The transition to high school varies significantly for students, with many experiencing success, and reaching their potential much later on in their high school years,” Thimba says. “Early admission programs don’t really allow for students to showcase the positive trajectory that happens once the initial transition to high school kind of wears on and students get their footing.”
[READ: 4 Ways to Bounce Back From a Subpar Junior Year of High School]
You Need To Compare Financial Aid Options
If you think you’ll need a significant amount of financial aid to attend a specific university, you’ll want to skip early decision applications, some experts say. Waiting until the regular application deadline — or applying for some schools via early action, if the option is available — will allow you to compare the financial aid packages at the other schools you’ve been admitted to and decide which one is the best option.
“When you apply early and get in, they give you a financial aid offer and that’s the offer you have,” Thimba says. “If you wait until the regular decision then you have the option of looking at several offers of financial aid and determining which one best fits your situation.”
Since early decision agreements require you to withdraw applications from other schools upon acceptance, you won’t be able to look at the financial aid offers from other colleges if you get accepted via early decision. On the other hand, early action does allow you to keep your options open since you typically don’t have to decide whether to claim or reject your acceptance until May.
Carolyn Pippen, a master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, says net price calculators are a good resource for students who need to gauge the amount of financial aid they’ll receive from a college before they get an actual offer.
“If the estimate they get from the net price calculator is one they are comfortable with, I usually tell students to go ahead with their early applications,” she wrote in an email.
Pippen also notes that colleges tend to be understanding if a student needs to withdraw their application due to financial issues, especially if the award package they receive is significantly less than the estimate they had anticipated, even if the agreement is binding.
[READ: 7 Strategies for Appealing a College Financial Aid Package.]
You Aren’t Sure a Particular College Is Your Top Choice
Once you’ve gotten into a school via an early decision application, it essentially becomes your only option. That means this school should be your first choice out of all the other schools you’re considering applying to.
Pippen usually advises students against applying through early decision if they have multiple colleges that they’re seriously interested in. Waiting for the regular application timeline will give you more time to compare the schools you’re interested in. You may even find that the college you wanted to apply to early isn’t as good of a fit for you as another school on your list.
“The thing that gets lost in the conversation about early decision is that this is a program for people who have found their dream school and they want to apply to it as a first choice, and they want to indicate to that school, ‘This is my first choice,'” says Jonathan Williams, associate vice president of undergraduate admissions at New York University.
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3 Reasons to Skip Applying to College Early originally appeared on usnews.com
