What to Do While Waiting for Early Decision Results
If you submitted your Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) application this November, you’ve entered one of the quietest — and most misunderstood — periods of the admissions cycle. Colleges typically release ED decisions around December 15. Until then, many students assume the process pauses.
It doesn’t. These weeks lead directly into the Regular Decision (RD) round — the main application window used by most applicants, with deadlines in early January. What you do now determines how prepared you are for RD and how strong your file remains as colleges continue reviewing early applicants.
Below is a clear, strategic guide aligned with what selective colleges expect — and with the realities we see every year working with Ivy Link students.
1. Continue preparing your Regular Decision applications
This is the most important task right now.
Many students wait for ED results before touching RD materials. But ED decisions arrive only about two weeks before RD deadlines. That is not enough time for the volume and nuance of RD writing. Most highly selective colleges require multiple supplemental essays, and strong essays cannot be produced in compressed timelines.
In our recent blog, Is Regular Decision Really a Backup Plan?, we explained why RD is not a fallback window but a competitive round with acceptance rates that often drop into the low single digits. The students who fare well are those who begin drafting early — when thinking is clear, structured, and not influenced by urgency.
Use November and early December to get ahead. The students who do this enter January with calm and clarity; those who don’t face unnecessary pressure exactly when decisions matter most.
2. Maintain strong academic performance
A common misconception is that academic pressure eases after submitting ED/EA applications. The opposite is true.
Selective colleges continue monitoring fall grades, especially when finalizing ED decisions. Updated transcripts often help applicants: they confirm the academic trajectory the student presented. Withholding strong grades removes a data point colleges actively look for.
If you’ve been following our November guidance on application strategy, you’ll remember our discussion in Should H.S. Seniors Submit Fall Grades to Colleges? about how admissions officers read academic updates. We noted that colleges interpret silence cautiously — and that even a short stretch of consistent, strong performance can reinforce a student’s readiness for college-level work. This period between submission and decision isn’t passive time; it’s one more opportunity to demonstrate momentum.
Your fall performance is part of the evaluation now underway.
3. Stay engaged in your extracurriculars and academic commitments
Colleges expect continuity. Research, writing, competitions, independent projects, and leadership roles should continue at the same pace they did before submissions.
For students who later enter the RD pool, the work completed in late fall often strengthens their narrative, provides meaningful updates, or even yields material used in supplemental essays.
This is also where long-term preparation shows. At Ivy Link, we work with students as early as 9th grade to help them build sustained direction — so that by senior fall, their commitments reflect depth, not rushed activity. Whether shaping ED files, advising on mid-semester updates, or strengthening RD applications, we ensure each piece of a student’s profile reinforces the academic path built over years, not months.
Consistency in this period is not performative; it is evaluative.
4. Use this time to confirm whether ED II should be part of your strategy
Although ED II decisions are released after ED I results, the planning cannot begin in mid-December. If ED II may be an option for you, the preparation happens now — while you still have time to strengthen essays and organize materials.
Not every college offers ED II, but where it exists, it can still provide a meaningful advantage. ED II follows the same binding structure as ED I and often carries acceptance rates higher than the Regular Decision round.
In our recent guidance on ED II strategy, we outlined why colleges offer this second early window and how it fits into their enrollment models. ED II is not a “backup round” but an institutional tool for securing committed students — one that colleges treat with the same binding weight as ED I. When you think through early rounds in advance, and begin preparing before ED I decisions are released, you avoid the compressed January timelines that create unnecessary pressure.
5. Why this period matters more than students realize
The weeks between ED submission and January quietly separate students who maintain structure from those who lose it. The difference shows up in essay quality, academic consistency, application completeness, and overall poise. Students who use this period well preserve optionality.
And if you’re not a senior yet:
If you’re in 9th or 10th grade and beginning to think about how early rounds like ED, EA, or ED II might fit into your long-term strategy, this is the moment to lay the groundwork. Early options aren’t determined senior year — they’re shaped by the academic choices, testing timeline, and sustained commitments you build now. Ivy Link advisors work with students well before application season to ensure each decision supports a cohesive early strategy and positions them for meaningful options by the time senior fall arrives.
