Early Decision at Catholic Colleges: Fairfield and Holy Cross Show the Biggest Early Gains in Our Data (2026)

Measure an Early Decision advantage in percentage points, the plain difference between the early round's admit rate and everyone else's, and the two largest in our data don't belong to an Ivy or a famous research university. They belong to two Jesuit colleges in New England. Fairfield's early round admitted 82.1% of its applicants while everyone else was admitted at 23.1%, a gap of 59 points. Holy Cross's admitted 67.1% against 16.7%, a gap of 50.

Not every Catholic college works that way. At Loyola Marymount, Early Decision applicants were admitted less often than everyone else. Here are those three and Loyola Maryland, all Jesuit, followed by where Villanova, Santa Clara and Boston College fit.

"Everyone else" is every first-year applicant outside the Early Decision round; that rate, the points and the multiple are our arithmetic from each college's counts. Loyola Maryland's round, 157 applicants, is too small to compare, so we show its rates and leave the rest blank.

Fairfield: the regular round is where the selectivity lives

About one Fairfield applicant in 31 applied Early Decision, and four in five of them were admitted. Everyone else, 20,610 applicants, was admitted at 23.1%. Fairfield's overall admit rate was 25.1%, so nearly all of its selectivity sits in the regular round.

That makes the early round at Fairfield less a boost than a different door. It also makes the price the thing to check first. Of the seven Catholic colleges here, Fairfield averaged the highest net price for families earning $75,001–$110,000, $44,077 a year, and the highest for families earning under $30,000, $33,302.

Holy Cross: more than a quarter of the year decided early

At Holy Cross, two in three Early Decision applicants were admitted, against one in six of everyone else. The round took 511 of the college's 1,829 offers, 28%, from fewer than one applicant in ten. Holy Cross's latest filing in our data is from 2023–24, two cycles old, so read the gap as the shape of the round rather than this year's number. Even allowing for that, it is among the largest in our data: by the multiple, 4.0 times the rate, only five colleges show more.

Both Fairfield and Holy Cross take Early Decision applications until November 15, and both run a second binding round due January 15, the same day as their regular deadline.

Loyola Marymount, and a round too small to read

At Loyola Marymount, the early round admitted 42.4% of its 858 applicants, against 48.4% of everyone else. The filing doesn't say why, and a pool of students who choose to apply early can differ from the regular pool in ways the counts don't show. What the counts do show is that, in 2025–26, the binding promise didn't come with a higher admit rate there.

Loyola Maryland admitted 39.5% of its Early Decision applicants and 70.3% of everyone else, but its early round had only 157 applicants. A round that small can swing a long way between years, so we don't draw anything from it.

The middle three

Three better-known Catholic colleges sit between those ends. Villanova's early round added 34 points, Santa Clara's 29 and Boston College's 20, and we've looked at each before: Villanova's early round, Santa Clara among likely schools and Boston College against Boston University.

What families paid

These are College Scorecard averages for 2023–24, for families who received federal aid. For the lowest-income families, Fairfield's average was about $33,300 a year; Boston College's, for comparison, was about $4,300. The two colleges with the biggest early gains, Fairfield and Holy Cross, are far apart here: Holy Cross averaged less than half of Fairfield's figure for the lowest-income families, and about $16,000 less in the $75,001–$110,000 band.

A binding round asks you to accept one college's price before you can compare it with any other. At the colleges where the early round does the most for admission, that is the trade to look at hardest.

Not covered here

Notre Dame and Georgetown have no binding round; their early rounds are early action. Fordham and Providence offer Early Decision, but we don't have the round's numbers from their filings.

Where the numbers come from

Each college's most recent Common Data Set: the year shown in the table, 2025–26 for Villanova and Santa Clara, and 2024–25 for Boston College. Section C21 gives Early Decision applicants and admits, section C1 all first-year applicants and admits. Net prices are College Scorecard averages for 2023–24, for families who received federal aid. Deadlines are for students entering in fall 2027, read from the colleges' admissions pages or the Common App in September 2026; confirm them before you submit.

If one of these is your first choice, see what it published, and your estimate there, free. Weighing it against the rest of your list is what the paid document does.