Early Decision II used to be a niche option a handful of schools offered as an afterthought. It isn't anymore -- more than 100 U.S. colleges now offer a second binding round for the current cycle, and at several major schools it's become a real, load-bearing part of how the class gets filled, not a backup plan nobody uses. Two separate forces are driving this, one on the college side and one on the student side, and they're reinforcing each other.

First, the mechanics -- briefly

If you need the basics: ED2 is a second binding round, typically due in early-to-mid January, with decisions back by mid-February -- functionally identical to ED1 (a binding yes/no commitment) but timed later, usually for students whose first-choice ED1 didn't work out or who settled on a different top choice after applying. See our full ED vs. EA breakdown for how it fits alongside ED1, EA, and REA.

Why colleges are expanding it: yield management got more valuable, not less

Binding admission rounds guarantee something Regular Decision never can -- a 100% yield on every student admitted, since accepting an ED offer means withdrawing every other application. That's always been true, but it's become a much bigger part of some schools' strategy recently, and the numbers show it: Tulane began offering ED in 2017, admitting 26% of its class through it; by 2022, that had climbed to 68%. Washington University in St. Louis went from 35% of its class admitted ED in 2016 to 62% by 2022. College Transitions' analysis of the trend names the University of Chicago, Northeastern, Vanderbilt, and NYU as schools that have all "leaned heavily into this strategy" of filling 40%, 50%, or even 60%+ of an incoming class through binding rounds. Adding a second binding round is a direct extension of the same logic: if one binding round captures a chunk of guaranteed yield, a second one captures more, from students who missed the first deadline or committed elsewhere and got denied.

This is happening against the backdrop of two other pressures already reshaping admissions: the application-volume surge that makes any single applicant's actual intentions harder to read, and the looming decline in the number of U.S. high school graduates that makes future enrollment less predictable. One admissions administrator described ED plainly as "a fantastic enrollment tool" for exactly this reason -- it converts an unpredictable 17-year-old's intentions into a signed commitment months before Regular Decision even opens.

Why students are increasingly using it: it's the rational move after a December deferral or denial

The student-side logic has gotten stronger too, largely because of timing. ED1 and REA results land in mid-December; ED2 deadlines fall in early-to-mid January. That means a student who's deferred or denied from a first-choice ED1 or restrictive-EA school now has real information -- an actual outcome, not a guess -- before deciding where to place a second binding bet, rather than defaulting straight into the Regular Decision pool. And RD has gotten meaningfully harder at exactly the schools most likely to offer ED2: as our piece on the ED acceptance-rate advantage documents directly from schools' own admissions offices, ED pools at several selective schools see admit rates 2 to 6 times higher than RD for the same class. Facing a Regular Decision landscape with record application volume and falling odds, a second binding round at a genuine second-choice school is often a better-odds move than waiting it out in RD -- provided the student is actually willing to commit, not just chasing the number.

A concrete case: NYU's early rounds are growing fast, and now dominate the class

NYU is a clear example of both forces landing on one school. For a recent cycle, NYU's combined ED I and ED II applicant pool set a new record at roughly 25,000 applicants -- a 10% increase year over year, according to NYU's own student newspaper of record, Washington Square News -- and NYU now fills more than half its incoming class through its binding early rounds combined, a share that's grown as application volume at NYU overall has climbed toward the six-figure territory covered in our piece on why some schools get so many applications.

The part worth being honest about: ED2 inherits ED's equity problem

This growth isn't happening in a vacuum, and it's worth being direct about who it actually serves. A 2022 Education Reform Now analysis found that students attending private high schools are three and a half times more likely to apply Early Decision than students at public schools -- because ED (both rounds) requires committing to attend before you can compare financial aid offers side by side, a real risk for a family that can't afford to guess wrong. Adding a second binding round doesn't fix that gap; it gives the same advantaged applicants a second chance to use the exact mechanism that favors them, while students who genuinely need to compare aid packages are structurally better served by EA or RD regardless of how many binding rounds a school adds.

What this means for you

  • A genuine second-choice school with a real ED2 deadline can be a legitimate, better-odds move after a December deferral or denial -- but only if you'd actually commit to attending, not because the acceptance-rate gap looks appealing on its own.
  • Don't apply ED2 anywhere you haven't fully vetted, including cost. ED2's binding commitment carries the same financial-aid tradeoff as ED1 -- you're committing before you can compare offers, with a real (but hardship-only) release clause, not a casual opt-out.
  • Check whether your specific target schools have expanded how much of their class they fill through ED before assuming Regular Decision odds are what they used to be there. Schools leaning hardest into ED (Tulane, WashU, UChicago, Northeastern, Vanderbilt, NYU are documented examples) have correspondingly thinner, more competitive RD pools left over.
  • If comparing financial aid packages side by side genuinely matters for your family, EA or RD remains the more honest path regardless of how much more common ED2 has become -- popularity of a strategy isn't the same as it being right for your situation.

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