Simply put, early admission should always be considered as part of your college plan.

Why?  Because early action and early decision programs can be tremendously useful in helping a competitive candidate enhance admission odds.  By submitting your application early, you'll hear back earlier and in most instances improve your chances for admission.  Better yet, if you're accepted early, you'll be able to avoid the cost and effort of applying to schools of lower interest on your list.

In this three part series, we'll explore the fundamentals, when/how to take advantage of them, and where early admission is offered.  Read on for Part I.

The University of Virginia announced it will add an early decision option for Class of 2024 applicants this fall.  

The deadline for early decision will be 10/15, with decisions released in mid-December.    

Click here for the announcement.

Here's our updated list of early decision and early action dates for the Class of 2023.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here where available, as well as last year's notification dates for reference.   

Good luck, seniors!

Boston College announced that beginning with the Class of 2024, it will replace early action with early decision I and II options.    

Click here for the article.

Rice University admitted 408 early decision applicants to the Class of 2023.  

Early decision applications rose 39 percent to 2,628, resulting in an admission rate of 15.5 percent.

Click here for the news release.

Northwestern University admitted approximately 25 percent of early decision applicants to the Class of 2023.  

Early decision applications rose 9 percent to 4,399.  Early decision admittances are expected to fill 53-54 percent of the class. 

Click here for the news release.

Middlebury College announced today that it admitted 297 early decision I applicants to the Class of 2023.  

A total of 654 early decision I applications were received this year, resulting in an early admission rate of 45 percent.

Middlebury expects admitted early decision applicants to comprise 41 percent of the targeted class size of 730.  

Click here for the news release.

Cornell accepted 1,395 applicants to the Class of 2022 under early decision.  

Early decision applicants totaled 6,159, resulting in an admisison rate of 22.6 percent.

Legacy students made up 22.1 percent of early admits and athletes made up 13.5 percent.   

Click here for the news release.

Dartmouth accepted 574 applicants (including 25 matched through QuestBridge) to the Class of 2023 under early decision.  

The total number of early admission applicants grew to 2,474 this year, up 9 percent.  This resulted in an early admission rate of 23 percent.

Dartmouth anticipates these early admits will account for 48 percent of this year's class.    

Click here for the news release.

Barnard announced a 24 percent increase in early decision applicants for Class of 2023.  

Overall, 1,235 applications were received for the year compared to 993 for the Class of 2022. 

Click here for the news release.

Johns Hopkins admitted 641 applicants to the Class of 2023 under early decision.  

A total of 2,068 early decision applications were received, resulting in an early admission rate of 31 percent.

Click here for the news release.

Columbia University announced it received 4,461 early decision applications for the Class of 2023, up 9 percent from the previous year.  The actual admission results were not provided.  

Click here for the news release.

Brown accepted 769 applicants to the Class of 2023 under early decision.  

The total number of early decision applicants was 4230 this year, up 21 percent and resulting in an early admission rate of 18 percent.

Click here for the news release.

The University of Pennsylvania admitted 1,279 early decision applicants to the Class of 2023.  

Early decision applications totaled 7,110, resulting in an admission rate of 18 percent.

Click here for the news release.