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3 Things to Consider Before You Apply Early Decision to Medical School

By U.S. News & World Report

Applying to medical school is a big decision and comes with many strategic choices along the way. Applicants must weigh how many schools to apply to, which ones, and whether or not they should apply using the early decision option.

While each of these choices can affect an applicant’s admission success, choosing whether to apply early decision or not can disproportionately make a difference. Consider the following before deciding what strategy aligns best with your medical school goals.

Ways to Apply Early

The first key information to know is the difference between regular decision, early assurance and early decision. Most applicants apply to 20 to 30 medical schools through the regular decision option, which doesn’t restrict when or how many medical schools you can apply to.

Early Assurance

Early assurance programs typically accept applications during an undergraduate’s freshman or sophomore year for a spot in their partner medical school’s class. Only select schools offer this conditional guarantee, and often, students must be invited to apply to such a program.

[Read: What Are Your Chances of Getting Into Med School?]

Similar to direct B.S.-M.D. programs, these programs are highly competitive and each school reserves only a few spots for its top-performing undergraduates. If a student is granted a coveted early assurance spot in medical school, the offer is typically considered binding.

Early Decision

Early decision, however, is an alternative application strategy. Under this program, students may apply to only one medical school by the deadline of Aug. 1 and will hear back about their acceptance by Oct. 1. If denied acceptance, they are then eligible to apply to other schools.

An important note about terminology: While there are early action deadlines for undergraduate programs, there is no similar application type for medical school.

[How to Decide Where to Apply to Medical School]

Timeline

As the medical school admissions cycle operates under rolling admissions, the application timeline is crucial. Generally, the earlier you submit your primary and secondary applications, the better.

Both regular and early decision applications open for primary application submission through AMCAS in late May or early June. However, early decision applicants may submit only one primary application by Aug. 1. Only after a rejection from their early decision school by Oct. 1 are early decision applicants able to submit their AMCAS primary application to other schools.

Meanwhile, other applicants who applied through the regular decision pathway may already be receiving interview invites as early as September and October. While it’s still possible to gain medical school admission when applying later in the cycle, the delayed timing is a significant disadvantage.

[Read: Why It’s Hard to Get Into Medical School Despite Doctor Shortages.]

Trade-offs

Often, the most stressful part of applying to medical school is the long waiting periods of uncertainty. Applying through the early decision route can lead to an acceptance as early as Oct. 1, while other applicants may be left waiting to hear back from schools as late as May, nearly a year after the primary application opens.

Applying early to one school may increase your chance of admission to that particular school. However, if you’re not accepted, submitting your primary applications to other medical schools in October will put you at a significant disadvantage.

In the world of rolling admissions, those who submit their primary applications first will have their applications reviewed and considered for interview invitations first, while there are still available seats.

Ultimately, the risk of applying late in the cycle is typically not worth the marginal advantage of applying early decision to one school. Early decision is often best suited for students who are planning to take a gap year, given the high likelihood that they may need to reapply.

If pursuing early decision, consider applying to a school where you have strong ties and where your MCAT score is at or above the school’s average for matriculated students.

While some may believe that applying early decision to a dream school may bolster their chances despite a weak or average application, doing so will incur more harm than benefit. Having a strong application and applying early to a well-balanced school list is the best path to medical school acceptance.

If you’re unsure whether applying early decision is right for you, consider working with a private counselor to evaluate your application along with your personal values and goals.

More from U.S. News

A Guide to Accelerated, 3-Year Medical School Programs

The Medical School Admissions Cycle: A Month-by-Month Guide

How to Attend Medical School for Free

3 Things to Consider Before You Apply Early Decision to Medical School originally appeared on usnews.com

Trump declines to rule out declaring a national security emergency to control the 2026 election

By CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump in a new interview declined to rule out declaring a national security emergency as a means to try to assert more control over the 2026 midterm elections.It’s merely the latest warning sign that Trump could try to mess with the election not just by baselessly claiming voter fraud and challenging the results afterward — as he did in 2020, leading to a violent riot at the US Capitol — but by trying to unilaterally take control before votes are cast.In the interview, Wayne Allyn Root of Real America’s Voice pitched such a scenario to Trump. He suggested it as an alternative, given the Senate has failed to pass Trump’s coveted elections bill, known as the “SAVE America Act.”“If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections,” Root said. He added that “if you declare a national security emergency as the president of the United States, they can’t challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress. So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship (for voter registration) and a limit to mail-in ballots.”It’s at this point that Trump cut Root off and coyly suggested such an option was indeed in play.“Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK?” Trump said. “I’ll leave it at that.”Despite Root’s comments, it’s far from clear such a gambit would even work. And CNN has asked the White House for more detail on what the president meant.Trump often responds to hypotheticals by declining to rule them out — no matter how extreme the proposal might be. So it’s possible to read too much into this.But as CNN’s Jake Tapper has noted, there are plenty of signals that Trump at least aspires to try to exert more control over elections. And these methods often appear transparently geared toward helping Republicans.A major one is the administration’s threat to have the US Postal Service not deliver mail ballots for states that don’t comply with its demand that they hand over their voter lists. This is a request that even many red states have rejected, citing privacy concerns.Democrats are much more likely to use mail ballots, which Trump has baselessly connected to widespread fraud. So curtailing them could greatly help Republicans.(Federal courts have blocked this Trump executive order, and the administration recently appealed to the Supreme Court.)Trump has also gone to great lengths to try to substantiate his still-baseless claims of widespread fraud. That includes the administration seizing 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and Trump’s recent primetime address about election security that some read as a statement of intent — a pretext for more direct federal involvement in elections, which are run by states.Ty Cobb, who served as White House counsel in Trump’s first term, said he interpreted the speech last month as a “predicate that he needs to declare an emergency.”And Trump has occasionally said things, like he did in the new interview, suggesting he would like to take control of US elections.Back in February, he urged his party to “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” adding: “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”The Washington Post also reported in March that pro-Trump activists were circulating a potential executive order that claimed Chinese interference in the 2020 election gave Trump emergency authorities over the 2026 election. And Trump’s primetime address focused on China, despite the tenuous evidence.Trump’s intense focus on the “SAVE America Act,” which has never appeared to have a chance to pass but Trump has said is vital, could also be read as part of building the case for more drastic action.But whether Trump could take over elections himself, as Root posits, is far from certain.As CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Michael Williams reported in February, the Constitution makes it difficult for Trump to truly “nationalize” elections. Courts have overwhelmingly upheld the principle that states are in charge of elections.Presidents generally have more authority to act unilaterally when national security is involved — hence the significance of invoking China — but some experts are skeptical that Trump’s effort would pass legal muster.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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