Can Applying Early Decision Hurt You? Forum

[ajlaw]

Can applying Early Decision hurt your chances of getting into a given school since colleges will only re-evaluate your application towards the end of the process?

[Mack.Hambleton]

Yes it hurts a lot when you have to take out 300k in loans

[RustyRyan]

(a) there is not enough information in your post to answer that question fully and (b) It depends on what you mean by "hurt" you.

For pure admissions, usually not. Assuming there is nothing else wrong with your application, ED'ing is seen as a plus for candidates who the school already likes. Normally, getting into Columbia but not Cornell would signify yield protect by Cornell (they don't think you would attend if admitted), but since ED makes that irrelevant it is impossible to tell what happened without more info and even then it could be the black box.

For financial aid, although this wasn't your question, yes it can. Without the need to incentivize attendance, ED students usually get pretty limited financial aid. This makes ED'ing a poor choice for many students. The two exceptions to this rule I know of are Northwestern and GW, who give substantial scholarship money to students accepted through ED (although the process is more competitive). ED is rarely a good idea.

TL;DR: deferred ED at cornell + columbia acceptance probably means the black box of admissions was at work in some way. TBH if he had the numbers to get in at Columbia, then RD Cornell +Why Cornell(+good interview, maybe) would probably have given him the best result, but oh well.

[taptaptop]

Generally, yes. But there will be exception, cough *me* cough.

[science burner]

Yes it hurts a lot when you have to take out 300k in loans

Unless you ED NU of course