Is Early Decision really binding?

The short answer is no. It’s not a legal contract and you won’t be thrown into College Admissions Jail if you break the agreement.

HOWEVER (and this is a very big HOWEVER)...

Breaking a binding Early Decision agreement is ethically wrong and has real consequences. Unless your family has experienced a catastrophic change (examples of such catastrophe would be that a parent lost a job, got sick or died, that your parents are getting divorced, or that you are in need of medical care—like a residential treatment program—that will make it impossible for you to go to college in the fall), you need to adhere to the Early Decision agreement. If you attempt to withdraw from an Early Decision agreement, you may need to show proof of the changes in circumstance.

Breaking an Early Decision agreement ruins Early Decision for everyone. Read my post about how Early Decision is a lot like asking someone to the prom. When you are confident that someone is going to say yes to you and then they go back on their word, you will lose trust in the process. Early Decision only works when colleges trust that students admitted under an Early Decision plan will 100% attend their school and their admissions yield will be protected. If students start finagling their way out of the Early Decision commitment, colleges may begin to doubt the reliability of Early Decision, which hurts future applicants.

Breaking Early Decision agreements also hurts guidance offices and future applicants from your particular high school. When you decide to Early Decision somewhere, you, your parent, AND your guidance counselor sign a document that states you all understand the binding nature of this plan. If you break the agreement, it makes the counselor look bad and compromises the integrity of your school’s guidance office. For example, if a college starts to notice that every year kids from your school routinely break Early Decision agreements, that college is going to be wary of future Early Decision applicants that come from your high school.

The main reason that students break Early Decision agreements is that they get attractive merit aid offers from their Early Action schools and realize that their Early Decision school is going to be too expensive.

In my opinion, this is NOT AN EXCUSE for breaking an Early Decision agreement.

First of all, many Early Decision schools are in the 100% need-met category, so by running a net price calculator, your family should have a very clear idea of what that final price tag is going to be.

For schools that don’t meet need 100 percent and/or Early Decision schools where you’re hoping to get merit aid, I STRONGLY recommend scheduling an appointment with the college’s financial aid office before you move ahead with your Early Decision agreement. Many schools offer these “financial aid preview” meetings—and even if they don’t, it’s completely reasonable (and very wise) to request one.

If you feel like it would be way too hard to turn down a big merit aid offer from an Early Action school, then you SHOULD NOT apply anywhere Early Decision… or perhaps wait and do an EDII application (if available) so you can see what the Early Action financial offers look like.

These are big decisions! My favorite source of all-things-financial-aid is Andy Leardini from College Financing Group. I recommend scheduling an appointment with him during junior year to clarify your family’s college tuition parameters and get a sense of how much aid you’ll qualify for.