What is the difference between early action and early decision?

What can be done when school has my son down for Regular Decision instead of Early Action?

• I just found out that my son's #1 college choice mistakenly had him down for Regular Decision instead of Early Action. We made sure to have all of the application requirements in by the submission deadline, and even auditioned/interviewed back in December, at which point we got verbal confirmation that all materials were in and he was in the Early Action applicant pool. I called the school's admissions department after being unable to see the decision on their website. This is when they told me. I explained that the status isn't listed ANYWHERE on the website, and that we had no recollection of even checking a box for Regular Decision. What's more, we confirmed the status before the interview and assumed what we were told was accurate. The counselor/rep I spoke with was rather unsympathetic, even cold, and told me that nothing could be done. In retrospect, I guess I could have confirmed my son's application status once more, but I assumed everything was in order when I was told so the first time around. My son is going to be devastated, and I don't know what to do. The school must be able to do SOMETHING. I mentioned talking to the Dean, but it seems hard to get to him/her without first being routed through an application adviser, who is the person I spoke to last time, who was not helpful. Additionally, I'm concerned that I'll piss off/annoy someone and ruin my son's chances altogether. I know I need to tread lightly, but the complicating factor is that the scholarship money that's offered is typically higher in the Early Action pool. That being said, we were given misinformation!! A friend has recommended asking the high school guidance counselor to call and get this resolved. Does anyone with knowledge of the undergraduate admissions process have any advice or tips?

• Answer:

  Wow, I can imagine how stressful this is. At least theoretically speaking, the difficulty of gaining admission in the early and regular rounds are of comparable difficulty. Although the acceptance rate at Harvard is around 20% Early and 3% regular but the huge increase is explained by the concentration of highly qualified applicants. From my experience in seeing the candidates accepted at regular and early both on a personal level at school and on admissions consulting spectrum for kiwis and Australians there is no distinguishable difference between quality of candidates. So at least whatever happens to your son you can rest at night knowing that the decision would not have changed which pool he was considered in. As for the scholarship money changing, if you are applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or MIT the amount of scholarship he will be receiving is also unaffected. If you could clarify what school he is applying for I can give you more specific advise but again if it was one of these you don't need to worry about losing out on funds. Furthermore, you can always negotiate with schools for more financial aid and we advise all our clients to do this very successfully. Long story short - don't stress this is not likely to do anything material except delay his result for another few months. They will not retroactively assess him in the earlier pool because of the stringent ethical codes of conduct that these admissions officers operate by and would rather unfortunately annoy one parent than be seen to be admitting students retroactively in a manner that could be misconstrued. I would advise applying to a lot more regular decision schools, getting over this and focusing on making his other applications as competitive as possible while you wait.