Spend Early Decision I Where There Is No Early Decision II

Of the 143 colleges with a first-round Early Decision deadline this cycle, 102 also run a second binding round in January. The other 41 give you one chance to apply bindingly, in the fall, and then not again until next year.

The split isn't random. Most of the most selective colleges that run Early Decision are among the 41. Several of the colleges students most often weigh against them are among the 102. When your choice is between one of each, the order you use them in matters.

Who runs one round, and who runs two

Among the 41 with a single round: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Duke, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Barnard, Williams, Amherst, the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Baylor, and the University of Florida and Florida State, whose first rounds closed on October 15.

Among the 102 with two: Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Rice, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, Tufts, the University of Chicago, NYU, Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern, Wake Forest, Richmond, Vassar, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Pomona, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Colby, Davidson, Hamilton, Wesleyan, Smith, Haverford, Harvey Mudd, Villanova and Lehigh.

Look only at the thirteen colleges in our data whose SAT middle-50% range starts at 1500 or higher. Eight of them run one round: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Duke, Northwestern and Carnegie Mellon. Five run two: Johns Hopkins, Rice, Vanderbilt, WashU and Harvey Mudd.

Why the order matters

At the 41, the first round is the only binding round. Spend November somewhere else and a one-round college can only be a Regular Decision application from then on. A two-round college keeps a binding door open into January.

So if you're torn between a one-round college and a two-round college, Early Decision I at the one-round college keeps both binding options alive. If it says no, or defers you, in December, the two-round college is still there in Early Decision II. Several one-round colleges, Penn, Cornell and Columbia among them, say in writing that a deferral frees you from the first agreement (what the agreement says). Do it the other way round and the one-round college is a Regular Decision application whatever happens.

Three choices where this comes up:

• Duke or Vanderbilt. Duke runs one round. Vanderbilt's second closes January 1. Here the published early edges point the same way as the sequence: Duke's round admits at 4.1 times the rate of everyone else, Vanderbilt's at 3.4.
• Northwestern or WashU. Northwestern runs one round; WashU's second closes January 4. Again the edges agree with the order: 3.5× against 2.9×.
• Williams or Amherst, against Bowdoin, Middlebury or Swarthmore. Williams and Amherst run one round each. Bowdoin's second round closes January 5; Middlebury's and Swarthmore's, January 4.

The order is a tiebreak, not a reason. If the two-round college is where the early round is clearly worth more, or where your score is inside the published range when at the other college it isn't, that outweighs the sequence. And Early Decision II is still binding. Use it on a college you would choose, not on the one left over.

The second round is mostly your regular application, signed

Of the 101 colleges with both an Early Decision II date and a Regular Decision date, 75 set them on the same day. At those colleges, the ED II application is the Regular Decision application you're already writing, with a binding agreement attached. The essays are due either way. What's left in late December is the decision.

Twenty-four set Early Decision II earlier than Regular Decision. NYU closes its second round on January 1 and Regular Decision on January 5. Davidson's dates are January 4 and January 11; Wellesley's, January 5 and January 8; Haverford's, January 5 and January 10. Smith, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Macalester, Grinnell, Whitman, Oberlin and RIT close the second round on January 1 or January 5, against regular dates of January 15. DePauw's closes on December 15. Two colleges set it later than Regular Decision: Elon and Gettysburg.

If one of those 24 might be your second binding school, its date is earlier than the one you've been planning around.

If you're applying Restrictive Early Action

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Caltech, Notre Dame and Georgetown run early rounds that rule out Early Decision I elsewhere. Not all of them rule out Early Decision II after their December answer, but the wording differs by college (the rules). For a student in one of those rounds, the 102 are the binding option that's left.

What the second round's numbers don't tell you

Colleges almost always report Early Decision I and II together in their Common Data Set, so no published figure tells you what the second round alone is worth (our ED II list explains). Second-round decisions usually arrive in February, before most regular results. A yes then binds you as firmly as a yes in December.

That's the other reason to settle the order now. In late December you'll be choosing a second binding school with about two weeks' notice, over the holidays. In October you can still read the filings, check the prices and decide which college gets which round.

Where the numbers come from

First-round, second-round and Regular Decision deadlines are each college's listing in the Common App's 2026–27 requirements grid or on its own admissions site, as in our first-round and second-round lists. Early Decision rates are from each college's most recent Common Data Set (sections C21 and C1). SAT ranges are from the federal College Scorecard.

Start with the school you're leaning toward: what it published, and your estimate there, are free. The full answer for your whole list is the paid document, and it lists the schools on your list that still take Early Decision II, with their dates, in case the first answer is no.