Early Decision vs. Early Action

In my quest to make sure we don't miss any deadlines, I've created a spreadsheet of schools PoS is applying to along with scholarship information.  As I was creating the list I noticed that some schools had early decision dates, some had early action dates and a few had both.  It hasn't been THAT long since I applied to college.  Ok, fine, it's been over 20 years, who asked you.  Anyway, I had no clue as to what the difference was between the two so I turned to Google.

In simple terms, early decision means that the school you're applying to is your first choice.  Your application is binding and should you be accepted, you are obligated to attend. Because of this, you can only apply to one school as an early decision.  The deadline tends to be November 1, though a few schools give you until December 1.  Early action simply means that you'd like to know sooner rather than later that you've been accepted into an institution, but you're not obligated to attend.

So we've got that straight and deadlines are set for applying.  But before we can jump that hurdle, we have to apply for special visitation programs at two of the universities.  Remember those road trips I planned? Yeah, well these schools have their own plans.  PoS received invitations to visit Carleton College, which wasn't on her list even though she wanted to apply there (long story), all expenses paid including her flight.  The catch is she has to submit essay questions, her senior schedule and a transcript in the next week or so.  Miami Ohio has a similar weekend that she's been invited to, but theirs requires two essay questions, recommendations from her counselors and additional info, all due next week. I feel like we're pre-applying to apply.  Needless to say, road trips are on hold until we find out if she's been accepted for those trips.

The silver lining in the cloud is that five of the ten schools she's interested in will be in town in a few weeks at a fair and she'll get to speak with their admissions counselors.  Hopefully this will give her a better feel for which schools she still wants to apply to and which can come off the list.  In the meantime I'll keep counting pennies, waiting for the go ahead to load up the van and set off on an adventure.