Vanderbilt Early Decision 2 vs Regular Decision Compare?

Trying to figure out if it's better to apply to Vanderbilt ED2 or take my chances with Regular Decision. Are there different benefits or chances of acceptance between the two? Any advice on which might be the better option?

When thinking about applying to Vanderbilt via Early Decision II (ED2) versus Regular Decision (RD), there's a couple of things you may want to consider:

Firstly, Vanderbilt is one of the schools where applying Early Decision does give your application a bit of an advantage. On average across colleges, applying ED can result in a 1.6x increase in your chances of admission. This can be a pretty sizable bump—for example, if your chances before applying early were 10%, choosing ED would boost your chances up to 16%. This generally applies to both ED1 and ED2.

However, applying ED2 or RD also has implications in terms of financial aid and commitment. Applying ED (either ED1 or ED2) means that you are committing to attending Vanderbilt if offered admission, assuming that the financial aid package is affordable for you. You may want to figure out how much financial aid you could receive using Vanderbilt's net price calculator. This is a binding commitment and should only be made if Vanderbilt is your absolute top choice and you are certain that you can afford to attend.

On the other hand, Regular Decision gives you more flexibility. If you apply RD, you will be able to compare financial aid offers from different schools before making a decision. This could be advantageous if you're considering multiple schools and cost is a significant factor in your decision.

Ultimately, you should base your decision on how confident you are that Vanderbilt is your first choice and on your financial situation. It's a personal decision, and both options have their pros and cons. But in pure terms of acceptance chances, Early Decision (be it ED1 or ED2) does have a statistical advantage.