Many highly selective colleges, including Vanderbilt, Pomona, Bates, Middlebury, Emory, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern, fill more than half their classes via the early decision pool. And the acceptance rates for these schools are often significantly higher during the early decision round of admissions.



Here's a look at the schools with the highest early decision ratios:

The choice to apply early decision—instead of regular decision—is a scary one because it's binding. Your student needs to be sure that's where they want to go. But with the increased chances of acceptance, it's important to consider. To make the choice, families often look at what can be called the early decision ratio:

How much more likely is it that a student will be accepted early decision vs. regular decision.

As a frame of reference, the average college offering early decision has a 1.6 early decision to regular decision ratio and fills 30% of their class with early decision students. The numbers speak for themselves: It can certainly pay off from an acceptance standpoint to apply early decision to your top-choice college. And the higher that early decision ratio is, the more it can pay off.



Students and parents frequently ask us whether or not they should apply Early Decision to a college. It’s not an easy question to answer; not only because there are generally quite a number of options when it comes to when to apply, but also because a number of factors need to be considered.

For students pondering this choice, we’ve prepared a  4-point approach to help you make this decision.