a Forum

[tipler4213]

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[lawgunner75]

ED = Early Decision. It is binding and you are not allowed to apply to more than one school ED. There is another option called Early Action (EA), not to be confused with ED. EA guarantees you an answer by a certain date. This option, however, is not binding, and you are allowed to apply to as many schools as you want EA as long as you meet the application deadline (usually December 1 or somewhere in there.)

[holydonkey]

So, I had always thought that early decision was binding, meaning you could not get out of it without serious financial consequences of some sort. But having looked at some people on LSNs, they applied ED to many places? What are the rules and consequences here?

Thanks again!

ED is binding. However, most law schools will allow you to apply ED to another school if you are waitlisted, denied, or moved to the regular application pool. For example,

ED to UVA - 10/1
Waitlist at UVA - 10/15
ED to Duke - 10/16
Deny at Duke - 10/20
ED to UCLA - 11/1
Accepted to UCLA - 11/15

Must attend UCLA

However, all ED deadlines are fairly early and it takes time to review an application, so it would be difficult to apply to more than 2 or 3 schools ED. In the above situation, if you decide not to attend UCLA, you will have to wait until next cycle to reapply.

[vanwinkle]

There's two kinds of early applications: Early Decision (ED) and Early Action (EA). ED is binding, EA is not. However, some schools have an EA type program but call it ED (Texas does this still, I think), so it can get confusing.

Also, you can apply ED to more than one school, just not at a time. Your ability to do this depends on deadlines. For example, Penn stops taking ED applications pretty early, but if you apply to ED at Penn and don't get in, UVA took ED applications until March last year, so after you heard back from Penn you could then ED to UVA. You just have to wait until you get rejected/waitlisted/moved to RD pool at Penn first.

[tipler4213]

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[McNulty]

Thanks for all the help guys. That really cleared things up. Here's a follow up question: what else can I do in the meantime to make it easier to apply once apps open in September?

I took the LSAT, graduated college, etc, but without essay topics and all that, what can I do? Letters of rec? Get transcripts submitted to LSAC??

Yes to everything, and actually if you click on the "TLS Home" button there are large sections/articles regarding how and when to do each.