Deciding to apply early decision to colleges is not an easy step to make. 

While most of America’s universities only offer one round of Early Decision / Early Action, some schools, including some of the nation’s highly selective schools, offer two rounds of Early Decision. For those schools that offer the second round of Early Decision, the deadline for most of these schools to submit Early Decision 2 applications is typically around the same time that Regular Decision applications are due to the institution — often in early January. 

So which universities in America offer Early Decision 2? What are the benefits and drawbacks of applying Early Decision 2? Wonder no more!

Which colleges offer Early Decision 2, and when are the deadlines?

Many of the colleges and universities in America with Early Decision 2 policies are liberal arts colleges.

Schools like Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Hamilton College, Haverford College, Middlebury College, Pomona College, Smith College, and Swarthmore College, among others, are staples of the list of liberal arts colleges ranked in the top 25 by US News & World Report offering applicants two opportunities to make binding commitments to attend.

There are some universities ranked in the top 50 by US News & World Report offering the ED 2 option. Such schools include American University, Carnegie Mellon University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Tufts University, Tulane University, University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, and Washington University in St. Louis, among others.

The complete list of colleges offering Early Decision 2 during the 2022-2023 admissions cycle, including the respective application deadlines, is below. In addition, schools marked with an asterisk are ranked by US News & World Report in the top 50 “Best National Universities” for 2023, while schools with a hashtag are ranked by US News & World Report in the top 25 “Best Liberal Arts Colleges” for 2023.