In past years the early action decision has been an option for a large percentage of colleges through their application process offering an admission decision to potential students by the months of December to January at the latest. This option, depending on the school, could either be binding or nonbinding. When a student applies for the early action binding, he/she is essentially committing to the school upon acceptance and will not have the option to apply to other schools. Recently, many prominent schools that did offer the early action binding through their application have decided to suspend this early action decision option due to conflicts with low income applicants.

One of the major reasons for suspending the early action decision process was due to the strive to be fair and ensure equality for all students applying. The idea of putting all students of the same application process allows for students of low income to determine their financial aid status which will allow them to decide if they are able to accommodate the tuition and fees of these institutes. Prior to this adjustment, early applicants were have been unaware of their financial aid before the decision deadline, therefore forcing them to make binding commitments when applying with the early action without full knowledge of their future financial state. T

This new decision does not favor the applicants who fully intend to commit to a school through the early action binding process. The suspension of the early action decision would restrict these students from finding out their admission status until the end of the year which can be nerve wracking, stressful, and in some cases disappointing.

Despite these conflicts, schools continue to push for the suspension of binding early action options on applications. The suspension would provide fairness for all applicants and allow students of low income to obtain the necessary information on financial aid in order to make an educated decision concerning their future.