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Doheny Library on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Gary Coronado\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Students on campus at the University of Southern California\u00a0in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Robyn Beck\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Admission to the University of Southern California is about to change dramatically as USC joins a national \u201cmegatrend\u201d transforming how elite colleges accept students\u00a0\u2014 and making it even harder for many to get in.<\/p>\n
For the first time this fall, USC will offer an \u201cearly decision\u201d option for applicants to most undergraduate majors. The approach\u00a0\u2014 long used by some private universities to lock in highly interested, often wealthier students early in the admission cycle\u00a0\u2014 is not only gaining new popularity, it\u2019s also gobbling up a greater share of incoming freshman classes across the college landscape than ever before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2022 College Guide:\u00a0UC acceptance rates for every California high school<\/a> | Acceptance rates by major<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOur focus is really on enrolling students who are excited about being here at USC,\u201d said Tim Brunold, dean of admission at USC. \u201cWe\u2019ve been studying it for a few years, and students have asked, why not have this option?\u201d<\/p>\n Under this approach, students can apply to as many colleges as they want\u00a0\u2014 but to only one college through early decision. At USC, early applications that don\u2019t make the cut will automatically roll into the school\u2019s \u201cregular decision\u201d pool. But applicants who gamble successfully on early decision at USC this year should expect to pack their bags for Los Angeles next year.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Another rule: Early decision is binding. Most colleges let students back out if they experience unexpected financial hardship, and the agreements are not legal documents. But colleges often treat them as if they are because it\u2019s valuable for them to know that nearly 100% of students admitted early are certain to enroll. It helps schools balance out the rest of their freshman class, such as knowing how many more science or history majors to admit. But more important, students who commit early provide greater financial certainty to schools trying to hit annual revenue goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n If a student walks away from the \u201cformal, multi-party commitment\u201d without a valid reason, \u201cit directly undermines (the school\u2019s) enrollment modeling\u00a0\u2014 so they do pay attention,\u201d said Adam Nguyen, founder of Ivy Link, an admissions consulting company. \u201cThere are real consequences\u201d that can undermine the student\u2019s efforts to apply elsewhere or even damage the relationship between the college and the applicant\u2019s high school.<\/p>\n \u201cMy advice to students is simple: Only apply early decision if it\u2019s your clear, first choice and financially viable,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, don\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Financial aid is a key consideration<\/p>\n This is why early-decision applicants are typically wealthier than students who need time to compare financial aid offers from other schools, a flexibility that only comes with the regular admissions cycle. At USC, the deadline to apply early will be Nov. 1, with a decision by mid-December\u00a0\u2014 months before financial aid offers roll in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Is early decision fair? Not according to two college seniors and two recent graduates who sued 32 private colleges and two college application platforms last August in federal court in Massachusetts to try to outlaw the practice. Their antitrust lawsuit<\/a> labels it the \u201cearly decision conspiracy.\u201d The students, including Max Miller of San Francisco, claim that by prohibiting applicants from shopping around, early decision suppresses competition and raises the price of education.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A similar program, \u201crestrictive early action,\u201d also bars students from applying early to more than one university but is nonbinding. Some of the schools that offer it, however\u00a0\u2014 Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton, for example\u00a0\u2014 are so prestigious that they don\u2019t need to require students to attend. Applicants just do because, well, Harvard.<\/p>\n What makes it harder for regular applicants to get into schools with early admission is not just the number of colleges that offer it. It\u2019s the growing portion of each freshman class that is taken up by early admits, which leaves fewer open spots for students applying in the regular round.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a megatrend,\u201d said Allen Koh, chief executive of Cardinal Education, a college consulting firm in Palo Alto. \u201cThe game theory of college admissions has changed quite a bit\u201d since the explosion of early decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n A decade ago, for example, Santa Clara University filled 11% of its first-year spots with early-decision applicants. By 2024, that had climbed to 30%, according to a 2025 report<\/a> by education researcher James Murphy of Class Action, a nonprofit focused on transparency in college admissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Santa Clara wasn\u2019t alone. The Class Action data showed 137 universities across the country offering early decision in both 2015 and 2024. A Chronicle analysis showed that, on average, their freshman classes were 32% early admits in 2015, and 36% in 2024. That 4 percentage-point increase translated to thousands of additional students taking early spots in freshman classes and leaving fewer for the regular round.<\/p>\n At USC, Brunold said he expects to fill 35% to 40% of freshman seats through early decision when the program debuts next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n If that happens, he said, \u201cone would likely see a greater impact on nonbinding,\u201d regular-decision applicants.<\/p>\n The highly ranked private research university is already competitive, with an\u00a0acceptance rate of 10%<\/a>, according to U.S. News & World Report. This year, 22 applicants competed for each freshman seat at USC. Yet for most high school students eyeing USC now, the chance of being accepted through regular decision for fall 2027 and beyond just got even harder.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m kind of bummed out that USC is kind of just artificially making my chances lower,\u201d said a Bay Area high school junior, 16, who plans to apply through regular decision this fall. The Chronicle is not naming him to avoid any admissions consequences. However, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not going to be super bummed out if I don\u2019t get in.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The teen has other priorities when selecting a school, not the least of which is weather. Four years in Canada, for example, holds appeal.<\/p>\n But he is also skeptical that USC could compel him to enroll even if he applied early and got in.<\/p>\n \u201cI know they\u2019re not going to kidnap me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut assuming they sent in SWAT teams, I think I could legally say, \u2018I\u2019m not going\u2019 if I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n Compliance considerations<\/p>\n He could. Although the agreement isn\u2019t legally enforceable, the binding agreement is \u201cgrounded in trust,\u201d\u00a0Brunold said. \u201cStudents admitted through that program are expected to honor their commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n College counselors typically warn applicants that there can be \u201cacademic, institutional and social consequences\u201d for backing out of the agreement without a good reason, said Amy Kirkcaldy, an admissions counselor at IvyWise.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cColleges, particularly selective ones, do communicate,\u201d said Kirkcaldy, a former Harvard admissions officer, so offers from other schools could be rescinded.\u00a0<\/p>\n Claremont McKenna College<\/a> in Los Angeles County, which admits 67% of freshmen through early decision, the most in the state, is a case in point. Its website says, \u201cFailure to comply with the Early Decision guidelines may result in rescission of the offer of admission.\u201d<\/p>\n Another counseling website, Ivy Coach, warns: \u201cIf you\u2019re wondering if your child will get caught if they make binding commitments to two different schools, they will, and they will end up getting into neither school.\u201d<\/p>\n In one example of the kind of pressure tactics some colleges use to enforce the rule, the New York Times reported <\/a>in October that Tulane University in New Orleans recently suspended four high schools from participating in its early decision program after admitted students declined to enroll.\u00a0<\/p>\n At USC, only performing arts applicants are excluded from early decision because they typically need to audition for a spot.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, early decision presents \u201ca double whammy\u201d for students aiming for an elite, upper-tier university, said Cardinal Education\u2019s\u00a0Koh.<\/p>\n A decade ago, students who applied to a top college and didn\u2019t get in still had a good chance of getting into similar-tier schools.<\/p>\n Not anymore, Koh said. As high-end private universities pack their freshman classes with early admits, students who don\u2019t make the cut\u00a0\u2014 and aren\u2019t allowed to apply early to other schools\u00a0\u2014 are pushed into the regular admissions cycle alongside students competing for fewer seats.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, if you miss one (top-tier school) in the early round, you may miss out on the others because all the spots are gone,\u201d Koh said. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened is that if you guess wrong (on your one school), you could end up falling quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a trend that most public universities, including the University of California and California State University, avoid.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly action\/early decision tends to favor students from wealthier backgrounds who have access to early college advising and are not dependent on financial aid,\u201d said Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson, noting that about 40% of UC\u2019s first-year applicants come from low-income families or have parents who never went to college.<\/p>\n Students walk past the Tommy Trojan statue at\u00a0the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n Public vs. private schools<\/p>\n Early admission systems lay out a red carpet for students of means by inviting them to the front of the line \u2014 which would not be a good look for tax-funded schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor a public school to say \u2018We\u2019ll have a separate pool for students who don\u2019t need financial aid\u2019 is unfair,\u201d said economics professor Jesse Rothstein, director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley. \u201cPrivates have a little less public accountability. To me it\u2019s a little unseemly, but they can make their own decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n The students who sued last summer say that no college should be able to make those decisions. Their lawsuit claims that early decision violates antitrust laws through \u201cmutual agreement between would-be competitors not to compete for students offered admission through early decision at other schools.\u201d<\/p>\n USC is not among the 32 defendant schools, which include Brown, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania in the Ivy League, and Pomona College in Southern California. The schools belonged to the \u201cConsortium on Financing Higher Education,\u201d which for 50 years collaborated confidentially on data, research, policy and \u201caffordability,\u201d according to MIT<\/a>, where it was housed. The consortium shut down on Dec. 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n Attorneys for the plaintiffs declined to speak with the Chronicle or to make the students available. One is Miller of San Francisco, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, a defendant school, who was admitted through regular admission and pays full price.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miller and the other plaintiffs argue that early admission drives up prices for everyone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n