Early Decision at Six Southern Colleges: The Higher the Early Admit Rate, the Higher the Price (2026)

Line up six Southern colleges by how much of their Early Decision round they admitted. Then line them up again by what a family earning $75,001–$110,000 paid there, on average, after aid. You get the same list twice: SMU, Tulane, Miami, Richmond, Davidson, Washington and Lee.

At the top, SMU admitted 80.3% of its Early Decision applicants in its 2025–26 filing, and families in that income band paid an average of $33,477 a year. At the bottom, Washington and Lee admitted 27.6%, and the same families paid $8,162. In between, the order holds college by college.

"Everyone else" covers every first-year applicant outside the Early Decision round, whichever round they applied in; that rate and the multiple are our arithmetic from each college's counts. Prices are what families who received federal aid paid in 2023–24.

It isn't one income band

The College Scorecard reports average prices for five income bands, from under $30,000 to over $110,000. In four of them, these six fall in exactly the order of the table. In the fifth, $48,001–$75,000, Tulane and Miami trade places.

The filings don't say why, and we won't guess. What the pattern means for a family is practical. The early rounds that admit the most here belong to the colleges where families paid the most at almost every income level. When the odds look friendliest, the price is the part of the decision left to check.

Tulane: the widest gap in the South

Tulane is where the early round does the most work. It admitted 58.2% of its Early Decision applicants and 11.5% of everyone else, 5.1 times the rate. No other Southern college whose early round we can compare shows a wider gap, and among all the colleges whose filings we've read, only Northeastern, Dartmouth and Barnard show a larger multiple.

About one Tulane applicant in sixteen applied Early Decision, and that group took a quarter of the year's offers. Everyone else faced about one in nine. Tulane's second binding round closes January 15, the same day as its regular deadline.

SMU and Miami: open doors, high averages

SMU's early round admitted four applicants in five. Its regular round already admitted nearly half, so the binding promise added about 33 points, at the highest average price of the six. Miami's early round admitted 44.3% against 16.5%, more than double the rate, at an average of $27,982 for families earning $75,001–$110,000.

Richmond, Davidson and Washington and Lee

Richmond sits in the middle of both lists: 36.5% against 21.2% in the early round, and $22,021 a year.

Davidson and Washington and Lee admitted fewer than three in ten of their Early Decision applicants, but their regular rounds were tighter still, about one in ten at Davidson and one in nine at Washington and Lee. So the early round more than doubled the rate at both, at the two lowest average prices of the six. Davidson's second binding round closes January 4, a week before its regular deadline of January 11, so there it is a separate date to plan for.

The rest of the South's early rounds

The pattern isn't confined to these six. Baylor's early round admitted 80.0%, and its average for families earning $75,001–$110,000 was $38,852, the highest of any Southern college whose early round we can compare; we looked at its round in Early Decision to a likely school. At the other end, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Emory and Rice admitted between about 11% and 22% of their early applicants, at averages of $12,153 to $17,755 for the same families. Their rounds are in Thirteen colleges share one SAT range and WashU vs Emory.

Flagler has a round big enough to compare too: its 2023–24 filing shows the early round admitting a lower rate than everyone else, 70.1% against 78.7%. Wake Forest also runs Early Decision, but its filing doesn't separate the round, so it isn't here. Neither are the region's public universities, where one early rate mixes in-state and out-of-state applicants.

Before you sign

At SMU, Tulane and Miami, the early round admitted 44% or more of its applicants. If one of them is your first choice, the price is the part of the decision the early round can't make easier, so run its net price calculator before you sign, and treat that number as the real decision. Can you afford to apply Early Decision? walks through the check. If price is what limits your list, Davidson and Washington and Lee averaged far less, and their early rounds still more than doubled the rate.

Where the numbers come from

Early Decision and first-year counts are from each college's 2025–26 Common Data Set, sections C21 and C1; Duke's are from 2024–25 and Flagler's from 2023–24. Average net prices by family income are College Scorecard figures for 2023–24, for families who received federal aid. Deadlines are for students entering in fall 2027, from the colleges' admissions pages or the Common App as read in September 2026. Check them again before you submit.

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