Early action

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Early action is a type of early admission process for admission to colleges and universities in the United States. Unlike the regular admissions process, early action usually requires students to submit an application by November 1 of their senior year of high school instead of January 1. Students are notified of the school's decision by mid-December instead of April 1.

In this way, it is similar to many colleges' early decision programs. Early decision, however, is a binding commitment to enroll; that is, if accepted under an early decision program, the applicant must withdraw all other applications and enroll at that institution. Thus, early decision does not allow applicants to apply to more than one early decision school. Early action, on the other hand, allows candidates to decline the offer if accepted, and depending on the program, it may be possible for a candidate to apply to more than one early action school and an early decision school.

There are two types of early action programs: single-choice early action and multiple-choice early action. As their names imply, single-choice allows candidates to apply to only one early action institution and to no institutions early decision, while there are no such restrictions on multiple-choice early action. Regardless, the applicant is still permitted to reject any offer of admission in both types of early action.

Almost all institutions offer some form of early decision or early action, with the majority offering early decision. Notably, Harvard recently switched from multiple-choice early action to single-choice early action, and soon dropped all early admissions procedures along with Princeton and the University of Virginia. Yale and Stanford recently switched from early decision to single-choice early action.