Early action is a type of early admission process for admission to colleges and universities in the United States. Unlike the regular admissions process, early action usually requires students to submit an application by November 1 of their senior year of high school instead of January 1. Students are notified of the school's decision by mid-December instead of April 1.
In this way, it is similar to many colleges' early decision programs. Early decision, however, is a binding commitment to enroll; that is, if accepted under an early decision program, the applicant must withdraw all other applications and enroll at that institution. Thus, early decision does not allow applicants to apply to more than one early decision school simultaneously. Early action, on the other hand, allows candidates to decline the offer if accepted, and depending on the program, it may be possible for a candidate to apply to more than one early action school and an early decision school.
There are two types of early action programs: restrictive early action and non-restrictive early action. Restrictive EA allows candidates to apply to only one early action institution and to no institutions for early decision, while, as the name implies, there are no such restrictions on non-restrictive early action. Regardless, the applicant is still permitted to reject any offer of admission in both types of early action.
Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia dropped all early admissions processes in 2007. All three reversed course in February 2011, restoring an early-admission program, though less restrictive than previous offerings. Yale and Stanford recently switched from early decision to restrictive early action. Well-known schools that offer non-restrictive early action include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Chicago, Villanova University, and the University of Notre Dame.
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or action:
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively. . . .”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)