Has Early Decision Gone Too Far?

This Sunday is the deadline at many colleges and universities for students applying through the early decision (ED) process. I look at early decision every year and the most recent numbers reveal the same trends they have been for over a decade:

1. Providing an early decision round in admissions remains relatively rare with just under 200 out of roughly 1,600 four-year colleges utilizing it and moderate expansion over the past decade.

2. At those institutions that do offer ED, especially more selective ones, the tendency is to enroll more students this way.

In other words, early decision is not really growing much nationally, but its impact has grown at many of the colleges and universities that offer it.

What Is Early Decision?

Early decision allows students to submit an application in November in order to receive an admissions decision by mid-December. The convenience of an expedited result is not really why students in the know apply ED, however; they apply ED for a strategic advantage. As I've documented here, admit rates for students who apply ED can be two, three, even four times as high as the acceptance rates for students who apply under the regular decision process. There are several reasons ED admit rates tend to be higher than other application options, including a stronger pool of candidates who tend to come from more privileged backgrounds and the practice of using ED to lock up athletic recruits at Division III and Ivy League schools, which do not have the power to commit someone to enroll through the offer of financial aid.

The main explanation for the advantage ED provides to applicants, however, is that it provides an even greater advantage to colleges. Very few, if any colleges, do not worry about yield, which is the term used in enrollment management for the percentage of admitted applicants who end up matriculating. While more than four out of five applicants admitted to Harvard or MIT enroll, at more than half of the roughly 1,600 colleges that reported enrollment data in 2024 the yield rate was less than 20 percent. Even at incredibly competitive and popular schools, such at the University of Virginia or Georgetown, more than half the people they admit go somewhere else.

Early decision is a powerful way for an institution to boost its yield rate, because ED applicants agree to enroll if admitted, although it should be noted that the agreement to enroll is not legally binding and not all admitted ED applicants do enroll, although most do. A former admissions officer at a liberal arts college recently pointed out to me that the ED advantage is likely larger than the numbers show, since many colleges will defer ED applicants to the regular round of admission rather than outright reject them. Those deferred applicants likely enjoy greater odds of admission because they are more likely to enroll if offered a spot.

Higher yield rates mean greater confidence in reaching revenue targets and other institutional priorities, particularly since students who apply ED tend not only to come from wealthier households and thus pay more to attend but also to attend expensive private high schools in the U.S. and abroad. These high schools are important enrollment pipelines for college enrollment and for securing revenue.

Higher yield rates also mean lower acceptance rates, because the more certain an office is that admitted students will enroll, the fewer students they have to admit. The more rejective a college is, the more students apply, which is likely why some institutions, such as Tulane University and Northeastern University, began offering ED and now admit more than half their class with it. When the University of Chicago started offering ED in 2016 its acceptance rate was already very low at 8 percent. Now it offers three rounds of early decision, including one that is only open to people who complete summer courses there during high school. Its acceptance rate in 2024 was 4.5 percent. That decrease is very likely due in part to ED, although it is hard to know since Chicago is one of just a couple universities that does not publish its early decision numbers.

Is Early Decision Bad?

If you look at the numbers on who applies ED, it certainly looks like the benefits are going to students who already have the most advantages in the college admissions process. The students most likely to apply ED are wealthier and more likely to attend an expensive private school where college counselors and students are more aware of the admissions edge they can gain by applying early decision. Some students from low- and middle-income households may be discouraged from applying out of the fear that they will be forced to enroll at a college they cannot afford. Colleges with ED programs do let students renege on their commitment to enroll for financial reasons, but how many students and parents know that is the case?

It is easy enough to make the case against ED, but there is an argument to be made that it can be used as a force for good. I have heard from college counselors at Title I schools and directors of college access organizations that they rely on ED to get their students admitted to highly selective colleges that also provide more generous aid packages than local public universities can offer. Additionally, if Division III colleges insist on providing an unfair advantage to athletes, it is better that they use ED to secure the single coxswain or third baseman they need rather than admit three in the hope that one will enroll.

The challenge with determining whether ED honors higher education's social contract with the nation is that we do not really know who is being admitted through early decision. The data are limited, but they should be improving soon. The Department of Education collected numbers on ED applications, admit, and enrollments for the first time in 2025; those numbers will be published in the coming months and we will follow up on them when they appear. For the first time, we will have a glimpse into ED yield rates. We still won't know, however, what percentage of students enrolled through ED received a Pell Grant or any need-based financial aid. That data could be part of the controversial ACTS data that the Department of Education also collected this past year, but it will be very hard to trust that data. Additionally, a class action lawsuit accusing a cohort of highly selective schools of violating antitrust laws through their use of ED is making its way through the courts and the discovery process is sure to reveal a great deal about how colleges use early decision for better and for worse, assuming they don't all settle before that happens.

How Common is Early Decision?

The incentives to offer early decision are strong, but it remains a relatively rare. The reality is that there are a limited number of institutions that have the drawing power worth dedicating staff time to an early decision program, which also requires the financial aid office to prepare aid packages early as well. Many more colleges and universities offer early action plans than early decision. Over the past decade the number of colleges and universities who offer ED has grown from approximately 150 in 2012 to just under 200 in 2024, based on reports to the Common Data Set. Not all data are available through Common Data Set for 2025.

This fall the University of Michigan, the University of Southern California, the University of Florida, and Florida State University have recently an ED application to their process, but it would be a mistake to treat them as bellwethers. While a few universities, such as Cornell, Penn, and Johns Hopkins, receive thousands of ED applications, at most institutions the numbers are much smaller. In 2024, a quarter of the schools offering early decision received fewer than 100 ED applications.

How Heavily Do Colleges Rely on Early Decision?

Although we probably do not need to worry about huge growth in the use of ED across colleges and universities, we probably should be concerned about its growth within certain colleges and universities.

In 2012 there were just 15 colleges where half the class or more was enrolled through ED. More accurately, there were 15 colleges where the number of students admitted through ED was 50 percent or more of the number of enrolled first-year students. Since almost no colleges share the number of ED students who enroll, we have to rely on this approximation.

In 2025, there were at least 45 colleges where half the class or more was enrolled through ED. I suspect the number is closer to 50, since I do not have complete numbers, and I would bet that at some institutions that haven't shared ED numbers for 2025 yet (e.g., Chicago, Holy Cross, Colby) the share is over 50 percent.

In 2012, no college enrolled more than 60 percent of its class through ED. In 2025, nineteen did. Three schools enrolled more than 70 percent of their class through ED. (n.b., Emory's numbers might be somewhat misleading since its Common Data Set report includes data for its main campus in Atlanta and its campus in Oxford.)

The increased reliance on ED is not surprising given the longstanding anxieties colleges have over demographic declines and wealthier families' willingness to pay costs that can reach a quarter million dollars or more over four years. Add to that the threats that the Trump Administration has made to research funding, international enrollment, and other revenue sources, and it is no wonder that some institutions are trying to lock down more and more students (and money) through ED.

Is this good for students? Well, it depends on which students we are talking about. If you're a student with the financial and cultural capital needed to play the ED game, then it's a great system for you. It's likely only going to get better for you this year. If, however, you're a student who does not have the wherewithal to apply ED, then your chances of getting into one of these colleges may be worse than ever.

That is a loss not only for those students, but these institutions and for the nation. One of the tragedies of higher education is that so much talent is missed by the colleges and universities that provide some of the most powerful advantages to their graduates. It is hard to imagine that admitting two-thirds of your students through ED is doing much to expand opportunity.

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