Applying Early to college is a must. If you’re a rising senior and you’re hoping to gain admission to a highly selective college next year, we hope you’ll be applying Early Decision or Early Action to your dream school(s). If you want to go to Columbia, we hope you’ll be applying Early Decision. If you want to go to UNC, we hope you’ll be applying Early Action. If you want to go to Duke, we hope you’ll be applying Early Decision. It’s the way to go. It’s the only way to go.

Let’s say that you’re undecided on where you want to go to college next year. That’s very common! The vast majority of students haven’t yet honed in on exactly which university is their first choice school. It’s only the beginning of July, after all, and high school students are known to be procrastinators. The Early Decision and Early Action deadline isn’t tomorrow morning so they figure they still have time and maybe they won’t even apply Early and instead just wait it out and apply in the Regular Decision round so they don’t have to make any sort of commitment.

But these students are making a major mistake. The odds of gaining admission to your dream college are significantly better in the Early Decision or Early Action round as compared to the Regular Decision round. Just check out our comprehensive Ivy League Admissions Statistics if you want to see the data for yourself. It’s not up for debate. The data is the data. Come a year from now if you’re a rising high school senior, you’ll only be attending one school anyway. You’ll likely have to make a commitment to a university at some point (unless you’re denied admission by all but one school — yikes!). So why not make it now? Why not use one of the best cards you have available to you by applying Early?

So apply to your dream school Early. And if you don’t yet have a dream school, find one. Don’t be a dreamer, be a doer, as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” creator Shonda Rhimes said in her recent Dartmouth commencement address. Start doing now.