Notre Dame’s Early Action program is designed to provide students with the freedom of choosing their college by May 1 (National Candidates’ Reply Date), but also enjoy the convenience of gaining an early evaluation from the Committee on Admissions at Notre Dame.
We are prepared to make a special effort to inform students early without requiring a binding commitment to Notre Dame. However, students applying to Notre Dame’s Early Action program may not submit an application to another college’s binding Early Decision program (both ED1 and ED2) that would prevent them from choosing Notre Dame if admitted. Students may apply to other non-binding Early Action programs.
Students applying to Notre Dame’s Restrictive Early Action program should be confident that they can present themselves and their academic records as well in the fall as they could in the winter to our Committee on Admissions.
Notre Dame does not provide an advantage in consideration for Early Action applicants. The Committee on Admissions will admit students in Early Action who we are confident would gain admission in the Regular Decision process. If a student’s application is close to competitive consideration, we will likely defer a decision until the end of March when we notify others in the Regular Decision pool. In the past few years, about 100 deferred Early Action applicants have been admitted in Regular Decision.
Last year Notre Dame reviewed 6,357 Early Action applicants, 1,983 were admitted and 931 were deferred and reviewed again during our Regular Decision cycle. The remaining 3,433 highly accomplished Early Action applicants were not admitted and considered other top national schools for their college careers.