Top Universities Face Class Action for Early‑Decision Admissions Rules

The early decision question appears at a certain point in the yearly college admissions calendar, usually in October, when high school seniors are staring at application portals and trying to decide what to do. The pitch is simple: if you apply to your top school before the deadline and agree to attend if accepted, your chances of being accepted increase dramatically. The catch is that, without ever seeing what other schools might have offered in its place, you withdraw all other applications and accept whatever financial aid the school offers. It’s frequently worthwhile for families who can afford to play that game. For everyone else, it’s a risk with unknown consequences.

On August 8, 2025, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston, turning the long-standing tension into a legal dispute. In a proposed class action, thirty-two prestigious American colleges and universities—including Columbia, Duke, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, and others—are charged with conspiring to use the early decision system to inflate tuition costs. Four current and former students filed the lawsuit, D’Amico v. Consortium on Financing Higher Education, claiming that because these institutions agreed not to compete for each other’s early decision applicants, they paid more for college than they should have. It is an antitrust violation if the argument is valid. In addition to monetary damages, the plaintiffs want early decision programs completely discontinued.

Even if the legal theory is disputed, the alleged conspiracy’s mechanics are sufficiently simple to comprehend. When a student submits an early decision application to, say, Wesleyan or Duke, they sign a commitment to attend if accepted, which is usually co-signed by a parent and a high school counselor. It is stated that the agreement is legally binding. The lawsuit contends that although the presentation creates a psychological and reputational burden that most students feel they cannot ignore, it is not legally enforceable because the majority of ED applicants are seventeen and minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts. According to students who spoke with the Brown Daily Herald, they were afraid of reprisals should they withdraw, including the possibility that their high school would be “blacklisted.” One student expressed regret for applying early because he didn’t get the anticipated financial aid, but he felt he had no real choice but to stay.

The complaint cites statements made by individuals within these institutions that are, to put it simply, hard to justify. The current general counsel at Vanderbilt reportedly wrote years ago that an early decision is similar to an illicit customer allocation scheme. According to Georgetown’s longtime admissions director, ED permits schools to “ration” financial aid because there is no pressure from competitors to provide better packages and the early applicant pool is typically wealthier. The former dean of Amherst referred to the entire system as “preposterous” before admitting that the institution continued to operate it because it was profitable. These critics are not outsiders. They have institutional responsibility for the very policies that are currently being contested in court.

Not to be overlooked are the three defendants who are not students. Alongside Common Application Inc. and Scoir Inc., which runs the Coalition Application, is the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, an organization that helps elite private colleges share information. The lawsuit contends that by restricting students to one ED application at a time and requiring signatures attesting to the commitment, these platforms aid in enforcing the early decision agreement. According to the complaint, COFHE serves as a shared institution that allows schools to align their practices without having to directly communicate those alignments. The plaintiffs contend that this structure turns this from a straightforward complaint about college expenses into an antitrust issue.

Some observers have pointed out that the legal argument is genuinely complex. Students are not coerced into making early decisions. There are regular decisions. Students who make early decisions do so voluntarily, and they gain a genuine and significant advantage in terms of acceptance rates. The case essentially asks a court to find anticompetitive harm in a system that students actively choose to participate in, frequently fully aware of the trade-off involved, according to a number of commentators on College Confidential and in legal commentary. It’s not a clear-cut winning argument.

The insider record—those quotes from admissions insiders—and the pattern of institutional alignment, which is difficult to explain without some level of coordination, are what the plaintiffs have going for them. Regardless of the outcome, it will be instructive to watch this case proceed through pretrial motions. The documents that surface from these institutions’ admissions offices may be illuminating in ways not captured in the complaint itself if it makes it past a motion to dismiss and reaches discovery.

The case is already making a difference for the hundreds of thousands of students who apply to early decision programs each November. The presumption that these agreements are legally binding has started to falter. Before, students didn’t ask questions aloud, but now they do. What transpires in a federal courtroom in Boston over the course of the next few years will determine whether or not that is sufficient to alter the system, and whether or not the institutions involved eventually determine that fighting this in public would be more expensive than the program itself.