Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision: What’s Right for You

Webinar Transcription

2024-09-16 – Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision: What’s Right for You

Anesha: Hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I am a senior advisor, a CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator for tonight’s session. Today’s webinar is, “Early Decision, Early Action and Regular Decision: What is Right for You?” before we get started just want to orient everyone with the webinar.

Sammy will start off with a presentation, and then we will shift to answer your questions in a live Q and a. On the sidebar, you can go ahead and download our slides under the handouts tab, and you can start submitting questions whenever you get ready under the Q& A tab. Now let’s meet our panelist, Joanne Guevara Pluff.

Hi Joanne, how are you doing?

Joanne: I’m doing well, how are you? Hi everybody, my name is Joanne Pluff. I am a former Associate Dean of Admissions at Hamilton College and Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Utica College. I now work at a large private liberal Sorry, private HBCU in Washington DC. So I’m so excited to chat with you all today.

Anesha: So before we let you get started, we’re just going to do a quick poll to see who all is in the room with us. If you’re a parent or a teacher, we welcome you can go ahead and select other and as we’re waiting, I guess, if you’re comfortable, I’m just going to ask you, how did you apply and how did you choose which pathway you apply to when you’re going to?

Joanne: So I did mostly early applications because I played a sport. So many of the. Places that I was being recruited wanted me to apply early. And additionally, I am a planner, so that worked out really, really well for me because I ended up changing my mind after deciding to go to a college like a couple weeks after Thanksgiving.

I was like, not going to do it. So I applied early and it worked out to my benefit because then I could, I still had time to figure out really what I was going to do. Yeah.

Anesha: Nice. I appreciate that example. Of what can still come with if you go early and then still have office later. Um, all right, we’ll go ahead and close our poll so you can go ahead and get started.

We have, we’re pretty split, so we have 10th grade, 33%, 10th grade, 33%. 12th grade and then 33 percent other parent or teachers. Um, so yeah, that’s our poll. I’ll be back a little bit later for Q& A, uh, but I’ll hand it over to you for now, Joanne.

Joanne: Thank you. All right, everybody. Um, so with this webinar, it’s tough for me to see individual questions, so it’s best if you put them just in the general Q& A and we can grab them as we go or later at the Q& A.

So I’ll give you a little bit of background. Um, obviously this is, there are always exceptions to the rules, but I’ll be able to at least share with you some general ideas of, um, how to kind of make the decision on whether you’re going to apply early, early action, early decision, or regular decision. So when we’re talking about the main admissions deadlines and when are they, um, truly the enrollment cycle for students who are entering, uh, their, well, have entered their senior year.

is, um, I would say beginning of November, really to February. That’s when the chunk of the applications typically are due. Now, of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Um, universities such as ours, my own. Um, we are obviously and always working on deadlines, timelines. And because of the way things are in the world today, you really never know what could happen.

So typically, most students will begin submitting the application. bulk of their applications from the month of November all the way until February. And of course, um, like I was saying before, there is always an exception to the rule. For example, Auburn University, their deadline I think was yesterday or is today.

Um, and then if you are a Florida student, you know that for whatever reason, some of the Florida end states, they require, um, a much quicker turnaround. So know that the bulk of your applications will be due from December to February, but there are some outliers. Okay, so I’m going to talk about the different application types because these acronyms can get really, really confusing.

And when you’re speaking to admissions offices, it’s really important to understand what you got going on. So we have the option for early action versus single choice early action. So for those who don’t know, early action is an early Admission, meaning it’s not binding. You can apply to multiple schools.

Um, there’s no specific, um, requirements for early action other than the deadline. Single choice early action means you can apply early action to one school, but you are not permitted to apply early action to any other school. So, for some students who, uh, are truly interested in a school, but they’re not so committed to doing early decision, single choice, early action is a really, really good option for you.

And this both early action and single choice, early action are the great advantages. It’s non binding. So typically that deadline is right around the early decision, those early application timelines, like I said, in November, even, um, late October. And with both, you will get your decision prior to the close of the year.

Now there’s also restrictive early action and early decision. So early decision is the binding one. I would say the most serious of the application types because it means if you’re admitted you are required to attend. You can only apply to one school early decision and um, the Common App literally will only let you submit one of those applications.

Now restrictive early action or early, yes, restrictive early action is. Allowing you to apply to one school early, and it’s non binding, but you can only apply to one school. So single choice and restrictive early action are quite similar. Kind of used interchangeably depending on the area of the country you’re in.

All righty, so I get this question probably daily. Does applying early affect the students chances of being accepted? And the answer is yes. So for universities that receive a ton of applications, so this is the type of application you submit is one of the number one indicators of your interest for the school.

So thinking about, um, demonstrated interest, it is the way that schools determine if you’re interested in them. So what we do is we’ll calculate, you know, whether or not you’ve been to a college visit at your school, if you’ve visited, um, the school itself, if you’ve gone to a virtual visit, have you done an alumni interview.

That’s you proving to the school that you’re interested. And the number one indicator of demonstrated interest is your application type. So early action and early decision definitely show schools that you’re interested early decision being paramount, because if you are accepted, it means you will be admitted.

Now, with a lot of those early action and early decision schools, you’re actually going to be, um, in the smaller applicant pool because not every student can get it together for an early action application. There’s no problem if you can’t, but if you apply early, it means it’s a smaller amount of students getting, um, that application view and while their eyes are refreshed.

I always try to tell students that while I think people believe that admissions is a. Um, like an automated process. It’s a pretty computer less process. While, yes, we do review applications on a computer, it is a human process. So, you want to be in that first round of applications because the reader is fresh.

It means they haven’t sat through, you know, tens of thousands of applications. So while it is a human process, it’s important to note that that smaller applicant pool means uh, better chances for you getting into a selective school and additionally, um, in demand majors. Take a sip of water here. All right, so the pros of applying early decision, like I said, the highest indicator is your demonstrated interest.

That means you’ve done a lot of research, you love that school, You would do anything to, um, to attend that school. The other huge pro is, you know, by the end of the year. So typically early decision, um, decisions are released around the middle of December to even that Christmas Hanukkah break that students have towards the end of the year.

And it’s a great way to start off the new year. So if early decision is what you want to do and you know the school you want to attend to, it’s a great option for you early decision. Also, like I was saying, allows you to secure your spot in a high demand major. So for students who are applying biology, sociology, I’m sorry, psychology, um, pre med.

They’re looking at business. They’re looking at, um, BSMD programs, high demand programs, where there are tons and tons of applicants, you may not face that many applicants in an early decision or early action pool. And if you do, it would be significantly less than the general population.

So what are the cons of applying early decision? Um, so the number one thing is the application is binding and universities take that quite seriously. So for students who are applying early decision, we require you to get your guidance counselor signature as well as your parent’s signature. So it is a pretty big deal.

And the only way to get out of an early bind, early decision contract would be, um, to demonstrate to the university that you cannot pay to attend the school. So it is a pretty heavy thing. Um, I always tell students like if your parents don’t know the day before you submit that application, it’s not the time to have that conversation because you are required to attend.

The other con of early decision is unfortunately you can only apply to one school that way and you’re obligated to attend. So just make sure that if that’s the route that you would like to go, that you know you can afford it. Has the major you want, has something interesting about that campus to draw you there, and eventually to be able to provide you with the end goal, which is your career.

And then, of course, with early decision, they typically have the quickest, um, application deadline. So that deadline, or like I said, the end of, beginning of November, the end of October, is typically when students are required to submit. If you’re a student that struggles with test taking, and you have not been able to nail down the score you want, this would mean that you, if you’re applying early decision, you’d have less time to submit scores.

So for students who are seniors now, I think we had one or two students on this call. Um, if you have not taken your SAT, I think the test date was either this coming weekend or last weekend, this would mean that the score that you or the test that you just took taken may not come in time for you to submit that score.

So you’re really counting on your junior year scores, um, that you may have taken last spring.

Now, what are the pros of applying early action? So it is non binding. Like I said, when I’m advising students, I almost often require them to apply early action just so that it gives us time to pull, um, and, and reassess at the end of the year if we needed to. There also gives them extra time to prep for college.

So if you’re like me, I had a lot of friends when I was in high school and I wanted to make sure that I had enough time to say goodbyes and do the things I needed to eat pizza from my favorite pizza place. Gives you a lot more time because imagine, you know, we typically tell students they’re going to apply to eight to 10 schools.

So imagine if the majority of your schools were early action applications, you found out whether or not you were admitted. So by that December, let’s say you had five I’ve acceptances. You have a lot of time to prepare for college and get your mind right. This also creates a little bit of less of stress.

So while the deadline is sooner, getting those applications in and completed to the best of your ability is a great thing to walk into the new year. It would be a great, great way to bring in the new year to tell your family that you’ve been admitted to a new university. The acceptance rate, just like early action also is significantly higher or early decision rather.

So again, you’re in that. Early pool of applicants when their reader’s eyes are fresh and they can really take in your application and my favorite part, like I was just talking about is the early notification of your acceptance or denial by far one of the, um, one of the best things you can do for your student.

If you’re supporting another student

now, the cons of early action. So super cool. Like I said, a lot of universities have early action deadlines, which is making it so much more accessible for your average student. It doesn’t take any additional preparation. It just takes some diligence, um, and working on that soon. So for seniors, truly, you should have started your college profile.

You should have identified the schools that you’re applying to. And then the last thing is just working on your essays and supplemental essays. So it’s a great, great, great option for students who truly just want to get ahead of the game. All right. Now the pros of applying regular decision. So time, time is always on your side.

If you don’t know what, if you’re a senior and you don’t know what you’re going to do, not to worry, there’s always support for you, um, whether it’s your CollegeAdvisor or internally with your own college counselor at your school, but regular decision deadlines typically wrap up between March 1st and February 15th, so this gives you a lot more time for testing, so that SAT date, you could take the September, October, possibly even the November SAT, or ACT in order to submit those scores for a regular decision application.

And then let’s say, you know, I had a roommate when I was in college, she changed majors five times. Luckily, the university that we attended had all of the majors she wanted. But if you don’t know, if you truly don’t know, if you’re in between engineering and and medical or nursing and political science.

This will give you a lot more time to do research and to figure out a career that you need or you would like to have when you graduate. So definitely a great benefit. Um, and again, that longer timeline means more testing time or time to work on your application itself, more time to flesh out the things you need to say.

Now, only a couple of cons that I can see of applying, um, regular decision. Number one thing is the later notification. So my university in particular, we send out our decisions around mid March. So that means if the national college deadline is November 1st, and let’s take this year, this past cycle out of it because of the whole FAFSA deal.

Um, but typically, students are required to let colleges know by May 1st whether or not they’re attending. So if you get that decision in mid March or let’s say end of March, that really only gives you a month to do second visits, meet with students, attend accepted student stays, review financial aid packages, and a shorter timeline to prepare to move into college.

The Ravage University starts on or around the middle of August or the beginning of August. So it only really gives you that some of those summer months. So if you have like adjustment disorder or you’re not great with being settled, um, regular decision may not be for you if you need a little bit more time to formulate a plan.

So how can students figure out a best course of action for themselves? So number one thing is talking with your family. This definitely is a family decision. Universities, colleges, they’re all super, whatever course of action you go, it’s all expensive and it’s definitely an investment. So make sure that when you are making this decision, your parents are aware.

There’s literally nothing worse than, you know, I’m talking to a student for months and months and months and the parents have no idea the types of applications they’re submitting. Please inform your parents. They definitely know you better than an advisor or a college counselor, so it’s important to include them in the process.

Evaluate your testing and be realistic about it. Transcribed So if you only have a 1200 and the school that you want to get into, the average student has on the low end of 1400, just recognize that that school may be a reach for you. We, uh, if you guys have not seen, um, never have I ever, it’s a great cautionary tale of only applying to.

Read schools because on the show, you’ll see student applies to a bunch of read schools and it doesn’t go well in her in the end. Um, and she did not have a ton of time to figure out what she was going to do. So it’s important to be honest about your GPA, your SATs, um, your AP scores, all of those things that come in to make that.

that cookie, which is your application. You want to make sure that you take the time to really, really take a hard look at it. Don’t be applying to only reach schools. It never ends well, and use heed someone’s advice. So if you’re well below the average or well above, make that decision. But typically you should be able to find that information on each and every school that you’re applying to.

So we are required to do what’s called a Um, admitted student profile in the class of da da da da profile. So most universities should have updated their class profile to tell you what GPA and SAT or ACT scores the students in the current class of fall 2024 incoming have. So take a look at that and make sure that you fall within those ranges.

If you fall outside of those ranges, they would be considered a retrio. And then students who are going to be athletically recruited know that that timeline is a little bit truncated as well. Students who are being recruited typically need to let coaches know much, much sooner rather than later and the coaches often require a, um, early kind of application or early decision application.

If you’re not comfortable with that, then that school may not be for you, but just make sure you take that on the consideration.

Last advice I would give for students deciding between early and regular application. Truly, it’s about organization at the end of the day. My students that I work with, we create in the summer of their senior year a massive spreadsheet that has all of the different schools they’re applying to, the testing ranges, their financial aid deadlines, their application deadlines, the amount of supplemental essays, put as much information as you can on the spreadsheet, um, and work off of the spreadsheet.

That should be like your Bible for a couple of weeks. Once you get through that and you can use that sheet to track their financial aid. I always try to tell students to apply to at least one school early action. Um, make it a safety school, work to your advantages, right? So if you are well above the average, apply to a safety school.

It’s a good feeling to be admitted to a university. It’s also a good Christmas gift to give your parents, um, who’ve also worked so hard. And then take into consideration, um, the availability of finances. So just know that some universities do have, or require you to. Apply early if you want to be considered for a scholarship, all that information should be listed within your large spreadsheet that you’re going to build, and some universities also have um, separate applications for scholarships, so if cost truly is a factor in what you’re going to do, applying early would be one of your better bets.

Anesha: Alright. Okay, we’re going to switch over and start talking about, um, and go into our question and answer portion. Just for some clarity for any folks who might be having issues with submitting questions, just know that you may have to log out and log back in. through the link that you received via your email and not through our webinar loading page.

The way that our questions will work, um, I will read through the questions that you submit under the Q& A tab. I will paste them into the public chat so that everyone can see them and then read them aloud, uh, so that Joanne will have an opportunity to give an answer. All right, we’re going to move into our first question.

Um, someone asked how long does it take to get a reply back on an application? Typically.

Joanne: So that’s a great question. Um, I think it truly depends. So there are schools that have set decision. Let me tell you this. Most universities will not give you a set deadline, right? Because here’s the deal. We have no idea what the application cycle can be.

My university, we ended up pulling in 36, 000 applications and somebody reads each and every single one of those applications at least four times. So we do not give out a deadline, but if your school is rolling admission, typically they send them out as soon as they have them. So there are a lot of state schools across the country that As soon as a student applies, they may find out in a couple of weeks.

So it really depends, um, but usually for early action, early decision, you’ll know in December. For a regular decision, you’ll know some point in March, beginning of

Anesha: April. Our next question is, within early action, is it better to get your application in earlier? Does it make, make a difference if I submit in August versus October?

Joanne: No, it doesn’t matter. Once it’s a complete application that truly represents your work, we don’t care. We’re not so worried. While we care the type of application, we don’t care about the time you submit it, if that makes sense.

Anesha: Uh, I have a question about this that I’ll just read deeper. Are you reading applications that they come in in August, or do you have like a set reading period?

Joanne: So we do have a set reading period, um, and we typically break them down. So we prioritize the early decision students, the early action students, and then the regular decision students.

So typically your average reader, um, will begin their process, literally November 1st, and then they will continue on until the end of the reading cycle, which could be anywhere from end of February, um, beginning of March to early February, depending on the school.

Anesha: I know you mentioned earlier that, you know, some folks who might have recently taken the SAT may not get their scores back in time.

So someone specifically asked how long does it take to get your SAT scores back and how much time in advance would you have if you’re trying to apply for early decision?

Joanne: So that’s a great question and it really depends on how many students took the test, which is such a terrible answer for me to give you.

Um, I will say you have to recognize that College Board right now is the single person responsible for SAT and AP testing. So the bulk of their work is at this time of year, this heightened time from really September until December. I’ve seen about a four to six week turnaround with, um, SAT or ACT. And the important factor is to, as you are about to take the test, make sure that you select the schools that you want to submit the scores to so that they’re automatically transmitted.

Universities typically do digital downloads of these scores and we get them almost daily. Um, but it’s about a four three to six week process depending on processing.

Anesha: Someone said, is there an enrollment requirement for early decision or do you have to commit to attending for one year, one semester, all four years?

Joanne: So it really is one year that you would be, um, responsible for attending, but know that if you are a early decision student, we kind of classify you as a cohort.

So somebody will reach out and say, you know, why are you trying to drop out things like that? But it’s a commitment for at least one year.

Anesha: Um, so academically, to what extent does your senior year matter? Um, if you’re applying early action or early decision?

Joanne: So it does matter. Um, your highly selective schools will reach out directly to your guidance counselor when reviewing your application if they have not sent some kind of Um, progress report.

So typically your average high school student doesn’t get their first term grades until about Thanksgiving. But most, most college counselors will help you get some kind of update to that school. So what does matter is that you finish out strong because there have been many times in my career where, you know, I’ve worked with a student or, you know, I’ve admitted a student, they’re coming and then we get their grades in June and they did not do so well.

It is very, very important because we are admitting you based on the work that you’ve done prior. So, a slip in that shows us that you’re not able to do the work. So, it’s very important to finish out your year.

Anesha: And that matters regardless if you’re applying early action, early decision, regular decision.

Correct. It still matters.

Joanne: It’s terrifying. It just matters overall.

Anesha: Yeah. Um, someone asked, is there a price difference for difficult application times? If I applied earlier, will it be cheaper?

Joanne: No, usually a flat fee.

Anesha: I was like, that’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think, it

Joanne: is a really good idea, but unfortunately no.

Anesha: Someone asked about considering financial aid. Should I be applying for scholarships earlier? How far in advance should I be thinking about scholarships?

Joanne: So you can, so students who First of all, I hope everybody’s considering financial aid. If you are independently wealthy and can afford to pay for college the cost that it is these days, power to you.

But I digress. Um, students need to think about applying for scholarships like it is your job. So all of those essays that you’ve written for English class, you know, free writing essays, career essays, use them. You, once you’ve completed your applications, my students that I work with are required to, if you need financial aid, your parents don’t have the money to pay, they have to apply to two scholarship foundations each week, which some people would say, wow, that’s a lot, but let me give you the law of averages, right?

So the university that I work at, it costs just under 60, 000 for students to attend without financial aid. I have a graduating senior who has never paid for college. She has always had a scholarship. And what does she do? She applies, she has applied to over 200, 200 scholarship opportunities. Now, while that has paid off, that’s a little extreme, right?

So you wanna find that middle. So make sure when you’re applying, look for scholarships that are renewable every year. Not one-time, scholarships as she found out. Um, but you do have to think of it as her, your full-time job.

Anesha: I, I feel like, yeah. Are you. Are you familiar? Students are able to find scholarships in 9th and 10th grade.

I feel like most of them tend to open in 11th grade or are they? So yeah, I guess what’s your take on the timeline there?

Joanne: No, it’s mostly, um, 11th, like late 11th and 12th grade because it’s, it’s based off of their activities and what they’ve been doing or longevity at da dun da dun Kawanas or a grocery store.

And no offense to our younger friends. But their priority is looking at the students who are entering college at the earliest date, like tomorrow, right? So while it’s good to kind of get a feel for what an essay might look like for a scholarship foundation, I would say truly waiting until your junior year, beginning of your senior year is the better way to go.

Anesha: You shared this. You talked about sports a little bit. So I’ll just ask this question. Um, You know, given your own experience, you know, professional or personal, um, if, is there a particular application choice that favors a student who is expecting a sports scholarship or getting recruited for

Joanne: athletics?

So that is a really intriguing question and it kind of depends on the situation. So when I was being recruited for D1, I was required to do at least bare minimum early action applications. And I was offered scholarships that were contingent based on if I was to get into the school, right? So I think your average person thinks like, Oh, cause there are a sports team, then you’ll be able to get that scholarship automatically.

No, you actually do have to get into the school, right? So they do have, at least basic requirements for students to be admitted. So there is no true application type, but in my own opinion, in my own experience, usually athletic recruits, recruits have to be in that early decision, early action pool. Truly if they’re pushing you for an early decision, it means they really, really want you.

So you kind of have the upper hand, um, which you can play to your advantage. But for a student that’s considering, you know, Talking like four schools, I would do early action because you want to be able to make that decision. You want to know if, if you’ll play, how much money will each school give you?

How far away is it? What do you have to pay for? So giving yourself the most amount of time as possible. What is the difference between a deferral and waitlist? That is a great question. So Typically, students can only be deferred in early action or early decision rounds. It means the college has decided that while they don’t want you to be admitted now, they will review your application in the bigger pool to see if you are academically and socially a fit.

So defer for students who are in early action, early decision. It doesn’t mean you’re denied. It means not right this moment. But we’ll get back to you, um, in some future months. Now, waitlisted is exactly what that one says. A waitlist means that they think that you’d be a good fit, but they just don’t have room for you at this time.

So they place you on the waitlist and waitlist is tricky. There are some years where I’ve seen, you know, other Ivy League schools go to pulling 400 students off a waitlist. And then there are other years where I’ve seen that they pull no one off the waitlist being on the waitlist. It’s not ranked, meaning it doesn’t matter how fast you fill out that form to say that you want to stay on the waitlist.

It does not MP. The other thing with waitlist is it’s a little bit lawless because we’re not required to give you any kind of financial aid. We don’t have to give you a merit scholarship. We may just have to give you a spot. It also does not guarantee housing. So being on the waitlist means that they think you’re still an interesting student, but they just don’t have room for you.

But you would need to be careful to see, um, some of those stipulations and a lot of waitlisted, um, schools that do waitlisting will tell you these are the 10 things that, you know, will happen if you choose to stay on the waitlist. But in many cases, again, we have no idea whether or not you’ll be pulled off.

Anesha: All right, let me take a quick pause to give some more information about CollegeAdvisor. For those in the room who aren’t already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be. CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one on one advising sessions.

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45, sorry, 45 to 60 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team by using the QR code that is on the screen. During this meeting, you receive a preliminary assessment of our academic profile of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out.

By the end, you’ll also learn more about CollegeAdvisor Premium one on one packages that you can pair, that will pair you with an expert like Joanne or myself, who can help support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and much more. All right, we’ll keep pushing with our Q& A. After that, I’ll leave the QR code up on the screen.

Going back to defer, deferral versus waitlist, someone asked if you’re deferred, can you apply to other schools during that time?

Joanne: Yeah, so if you don’t get admitted, um, let’s say you’re applying early decision to Stanford and you don’t get admitted, you are deferred. Your early decision contract is now broken because you were not admitted in that first round.

So you can apply anywhere else you want to.

Anesha: Uh, someone’s asking me about. Timeline. How long after being admitted do you have to accept the offer? And what does that process of deciding where to go look like from a student’s perspective?

Joanne: So the national deadline for depositing and selecting a college is typically May 1st.

Now, always with an asterisk, there are like honors programs or more selective programs that may have a quicker timeline for you. So it truly depends. The process for selecting, I think, is truly based on each individual student. I had a student, you know, my last year, she, Had visited all of her colleges in the fall.

She did not need to do second round of visits because she was situated. So she was able to make a decision without all of that. Then there are students who just want to go to each individual campus again. You know, it really does vary, but the biggest things that you guys would need to do is reviewing the acceptance.

So what school did you get admitted to? What program? Um, and then take a look at the financial aid. Once you feel like you have a handle on it, students can, most colleges have a portal. You can let them know via the portal that you’ll be attending by paying your deposit to the school. Um,

Anesha: I think this question is coming from an awareness of like, sometimes there are spring admins.

So the student asked, um, if I apply, Early action, does it increase my chances of starting in the summer? Do I start in the fall or does it not matter?

Joanne: For a spring admit?

Anesha: I guess they’re, they don’t want to be admitted in the spring and so they’re asking if they apply early action, does that guarantee that they can start in the summer or the fall?

Joanne: So probably not the fall are not the fall, not the summer. It would be a fall start, um, for schools that have spring admits for first year. That’s very unlikely unless it’s like an extenuating circumstance that perhaps you had like a dual enrollment or you were getting an associates while being in college.

usually not something where you get to determine your start date. You really have to finish and graduate high school in order to be, um, amongst the class cohort. So typically if you are applying early action, you don’t get to start in the spring. You would have to start that August of your, the end of your senior year.

Um, okay. So some, I

Anesha: think ED versus EA equation. So someone asked if I apply ED for school, can I also apply EA to other schools? Um, if, yeah, if, can I also apply to EA to other schools while applying ED to one school?

Joanne: Absolutely. Um, but just know if you’re admitted ed, that’s where you’re headed. So it’s good to have backup plans and you should apply to other schools.

EA, if you’re also applying to a school ed, once it’s not single choice or restrictive, you’re good to go. And then someone asks,

Anesha: can I change from ed to EA after I’ve already submitted?

Joanne: So you can, right? The non controversial answer is yes, you can. You can email the admissions offices and let them know, just know that we don’t love that kind of discussion.

Um, you can do it, but I wouldn’t say that there is visible prejudice, but it’s somewhat frowned upon.

Anesha: Oh, someone asked, if after the May 1st deadline to commit, can you change your mind?

Joanne: You can, um, but some schools may not have space for you. So you absolutely can do that. There are many colleges across this country and abroad, if that’s what you’re interested in, but not all of them will allow you to, um, enroll after that May 1st deadline.

Anesha: Someone said, uh, do college, sorry, how do you, how do they choose the amount of financial aid for a student?

Joanne: Oh, I wish I could tell you guys that’s like a secret, truly secret equation that we come up with. And it’s wild, right? So it’s based off of some students. Some colleges will evaluate students based off of the FAFSA.

Some will do it based off of their GPA. There is no rhyme or reason. You are looking at financial aid. Obviously, the student aid index off of the FAFSA is that big determining question. You should go to each college and do the profile for students or, um, not the profile, the net price calculator so you can see what you would possibly have to pay.

But at the end of the day, schools aren’t required to tell you outside of federal aid how much they will give you and why they decided to give you that amount of money. So I recommend checking out schools that are, um, that meet your, your full need or meet 50 percent of your need. That means that if, let’s say a niece’s family is going to pay for college, they have 5, 000.

If they meet 50 percent of your need, that means that they would give you the 2, 500 for you to pay on that yearly basis. But unfortunately we are not. at the liberty to tell you, and I highly doubt that any college will tell you how we determine what your financial aid is. It’s unfortunate. Um, they may tell you the, the ranges for your merit scholarships if they, um, if they give out merit scholarships, but the rest of the aid, there’s not a chance you’ll find out.

Anesha: I also wanted to note that sometimes those offices are separate, like the admissions office is not connected to the Financial aid office. So it could be two different people, two different groups of people having different conversations.

Joanne: Absolutely. So where the admissions team gets like a full background of your academic history, the financial aid team may only see like, who’s in your house.

This is the amount of money they think we can pay. This is what we’ll give you. So they may get significant less information.

Anesha: All right. Um, someone was asking a couple of questions about visits that I’ll combine. Um, so someone said. Do visits help? And then someone else asked, how do I prove that I visited, um, in order to show that I’m interested in the college?

Joanne: So most schools can track demonstrated interests. We all use programs that are called CRMs that basically email you. It’s how your portal is generated when you’re applying, um, and your enrollment portal as well. So the first thing you guys should know is when we email you, those links contain It will tell us if you’ve opened the email.

It will tell us if you’ve clicked the links in the email. It will tell us how long you’ve looked at the email. It will tell us how many times you’ve opened the email. So know that we track that on our end. And once you apply, typically there is a record that’s created in our system that joins your application to your visit information.

So if a we’re visiting Boston and the student is Katie from Boston High School. And once she signs in with the admissions officer, the admissions officer likely will say, scan this QR code. So we know you visited and then it attaches itself to your application. So there’s like a lot of like background magic that’s happening that students don’t have access to that information, but know that it’s something that is tracked.

If you visit, if you visit any university that looks at demonstrated interests, it is important for you to check in at their admissions office and say, I just want to make sure you guys know that I was here. Um, Go to that information session, visit their college table, sign those inquiry cards, do all of that, because we do keep track of it for us to show, um, the admissions committee that you’re truly interested in.

Anesha: Okay, two questions for clarification. Someone said, am I bound only if I am accepted? Yes, and then the other question was, um, are you notified early enough after restricted early action to be able to apply for regular decision?

Joanne: Oh, absolutely. Restrictive has the same, um, other deadlines and turnaround. So, like I said, you’ll know that.

New Year’s kind of conglomeration there at the end of the year, you’ll know. So it should give you at least two months to generate some new applications.

Anesha: Christmas Hanukkah. That’s just a great Christmas Hanukkah. Um, um, all right. Uh, that was our last question. So we’re going to go ahead and leave it there, but thank you so much, Joanne, for answering all the amazing questions that came through.

Thanks to our audience for attending. Um, and yeah, we’ll wrap it up and take care and have a good rest of your evening, everybody. Thanks,

Joanne: everybody. Bye.