Ask Stacy Blackman

Dear mygmat.2009,

Early Decision is not usually seen as more or less competitive than Round 1. It is usually viewed quite similarly. Schools that offer an Early Decision round do vary in how they operate though with regard to offering admission to those applicants. There are some that will roll applications to Round 1 as they do not want to continue to evaluate that applicant against the next round of applicants. Other schools do not roll applications and simply make an admit/waitlist/reject decision. Most schools have a policy that if you are denied admission at any round, you cannot re-apply until the next admissions cycle, so you would not be able to request your application to roll to Round 1--the school has to move it. Once again, there could be some variance in that there is a school that will allow you to request your application to be moved, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Good luck,
Lisa

I advise my clients to apply Early Decision if the school is their top choice and they would go there over any other school. When you apply Early Decision, you are essentially communicating to the school that it is your first choice and you plan to attend if admitted. So, if that is not the case, then it is probably best to apply in the next round. In addition to potentially saving some application fees to other schools, the advantage to the applicant is that you are done with the admissions process early and can start to make your plans to attend business school sooner. There is also a slight advantage in the admissions process in that you are conveying you would attend there if admitted. Schools do want to yield the right applicants from the pool of admitted candidates--if you apply Early Decision, you are committing to attend if admitted. So, if you are a strong applicant that can add value to that school, then the school will want to "lock you in" early for the class.

Best of luck!
Lisa

Dear Vanilla Gorilla,

That is a plausible and possible outcome, yes. Some schools do offer less in terms of scholarship to early decision, but that is not always the case. There is wide variance on the scholarship offers for schools with early decision rounds as philosophies in this regard differ. Likewise, the philosophies on scholarships in general are different as some schools do not offer any awards larger than 50% or some other amount. In essence, the scholarship award should not matter to folks applying early decision--they have declared this to be the school they absolutely want to be at should they be admitted.

Regards,
Lisa

Dear shaselai,

Many applicants apply to multiple schools ED, so you would not be the only one employing that strategy. I think it is probably fine to apply ED, but if you are offered a seat at more than one, you should only make one commitment to attend.

Good luck,
Lisa