What exactly is rolling admission? If I don't get accepted, can I still submit again for RD/EA?

Answered

Rolling admission just means that the college has a first-come, first-serve policy to their Regular Decisions which are not binding.

The benefit to the college is that if they are not super competitive or in great demand (lower yield and mostly T100-T500 schools do this), they can fill up seats and improve their yield statistics with a very little upfront cost. They can employ a skeleton crew to process rolling applications and have a steady stream of matriculants.

The benefit to applicants is that they know they will have somewhere to go if they get admitted on a rolling basis. This takes the stress and "edge" off for those HS students that are anxious about the process and would feel better if they had a place to land.

If you apply to a rolling decision school, you can still apply to other RD/EA schools. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this to a high-achieving HS student who is targeting T25-T75 schools because perhaps you really don't want to go to rolling admission colleges in the first place so why waste time and effort to apply. Secondly, it costs money. So you can save your application fees for colleges you actually see yourself thriving at instead.

I watch youtube videos on college reactions and I'm often dumbfounded by YouTubers who apply to 20 colleges including rolling admissions ones and Ivys and Elites. I think they do it for the reasons I stated above but also for the "flex" factor to let their audience know that they are getting in a few rolling ones before they start getting waitlisted or rejected from the ones they really want to go to. I feel bad for those that post reaction videos to mostly Ivys and Elites and have to settle for their safety. Ouch.