College Application Deadline Calendar for Counselors: ED, EA, and RD Dates by School
By Rona Aydin
TL;DR: This is a school by school college application deadline calendar for the 2026-2027 cycle, built for counseling offices. Every date in it was checked against the university’s own admissions page rather than copied from an aggregator, which matters because aggregators currently disagree on several Ivy League Regular Decision dates: Penn and Brown close on January 5, 2027, Cornell and Yale on January 2, and Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton on January 1. Every Ivy early deadline is November 1, 2026, and no Ivy offers Early Decision II. The calendar opens with the Ivy League block and expands through the 50 universities in the College Admissions Transparency Index as each school’s dates are verified. Print it, link it from a counseling page, or share it with families. If you would like help building a student’s application timeline around these dates, Oriel Admissions does exactly that: schedule a consultation.
How to Read This Calendar
Each row lists the school’s early plan and its deadline, the window in which early decisions are released, the Regular Decision deadline, the Regular Decision release window, and the notes a counselor needs: whether the school runs Early Decision II, how it treats materials that arrive after the deadline, and any restriction that shapes a student’s other early applications. Deadlines fall at 11:59 pm in the applicant’s local time at every school in this table. Release windows are the schools’ own published estimates and shift by a few days each year. The counselor portion of an application, meaning the school report, transcript, and recommendations, is accepted after the student deadline at every Ivy League school; Harvard states one week explicitly, and Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown say materials will be added to the file as they arrive.
For the mechanics behind these dates, including how the three deadline walls of the cycle work and what trips up strong applicants, see our 2026-2027 college application deadlines guide. For the release side of the calendar, see early decision notification dates and regular decision notification dates.
Ivy League Application Deadlines for the 2026-2027 Cycle
All eight schools close their early round on November 1, 2026, and none offers a second binding round, so a student deferred or denied in December has no Ivy League Early Decision II to fall back on. The Regular Decision dates are where the schools differ, and where the errors in circulation live.
| School | Early Plan | Early Deadline | Early Decision Release | Regular Decision Deadline | RD Release | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown University | Early Decision | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 5, 2027 | Early April | No ED II. 11:59 pm applicant local time. |
| Columbia University | Early Decision | November 1, 2026 (a Sunday) | Mid-December | January 1, 2027 | Late March | No ED II. Recommendations and transcripts may arrive after the deadline. |
| Cornell University | Early Decision | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 2, 2027 | Late March to early April | No ED II. ED enrollment deposit due early January. |
| Dartmouth College | Early Decision | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 1, 2027 | Late March to early April | No ED II. School portion accepted after the deadline. |
| Harvard University | Restrictive Early Action | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 1, 2027 | End of March | Counselors may submit materials up to one week after the deadline. |
| Princeton University | Single-Choice Early Action | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 1, 2027 | Late March | No early program elsewhere at a private US college if applying SCEA. |
| University of Pennsylvania | Early Decision | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 5, 2027 | By April 1 | No ED II. Apply to one of four undergraduate schools. |
| Yale University | Single-Choice Early Action | November 1, 2026 | Mid-December | January 2, 2027 | By April 1 | Round 2 style ED or EA programs elsewhere are permitted under SCEA rules. |
Sources informing this table: each university’s own first-year admissions and deadlines pages for the 2026-2027 cycle, checked August 30, 2026. Every deadline above is 11:59 pm in the applicant’s local time unless the school states otherwise. Release windows are the schools’ own published estimates. Confirm on the official page before building a school calendar around any date.
Three details in the table deserve a counselor’s attention. First, November 1, 2026 is a Sunday; Columbia says so on its own page, and every Ivy deadline falls on that Sunday, which means school offices will be closed on the day most students submit, and any counselor material that must go out on deadline day should go out the Friday before. Second, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale run restrictive early programs rather than Early Decision: a student who applies to one of them early may not apply early to any other private college in the United States, with Yale explicitly permitting non-binding rounds at public institutions, rolling programs, international schools, and early programs that notify after January 1. Third, Brown and Penn close Regular Decision on January 5, four days after Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton, and several widely circulated calendars list them at January 1. A student who trusts one of those calendars loses nothing; a student who trusts a calendar that lists Cornell or Yale at January 1 when the real date is January 2 also loses nothing. The failure mode runs the other way: a calendar that shows a later date than the real one. That is why every row here cites the school itself.
How Counseling Offices Can Use This Calendar
The calendar is free to print, link, and distribute. It works best alongside an internal deadline policy: a school wide date, typically two weeks before the earliest early deadline on any student’s list, by which recommendation requests, transcripts, and the school report must be in motion. Because every Ivy early deadline is November 1, an internal date of October 15 covers the block, and it also covers the October 15 priority rounds at public flagships such as UNC Chapel Hill and Georgia Tech, which will appear here as their pages are verified. Students who are choosing among binding options can pair this calendar with our early decision strategy recommender, and students deciding among Columbia, Cornell, and Penn specifically can read whether to apply Early Decision to Columbia, Cornell, or Penn.
Frequently Asked Questions About College Application Deadline Calendars
Every Ivy League early deadline is November 1, 2026. Regular Decision closes January 1, 2027 at Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton; January 2 at Cornell and Yale; and January 5 at Brown and Penn. Each date is taken from the school itself, not from an aggregator.
No. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn run a single binding Early Decision round closing November 1, and Harvard, Princeton, and Yale run restrictive early action rather than Early Decision. A student deferred or denied in December has no second binding Ivy round.
At every school in this calendar, 11:59 pm in the applicant local time zone on the deadline date. Some colleges outside this table use Eastern Time for all applicants, so counselors should confirm the convention for each school on a student list. Submitting a full day early avoids deadline night portal failures, which rarely earn extensions.
At the Ivy League schools the student deadline applies to the student portion of the application. Harvard states that counselors may submit supporting materials up to one week after the deadline, and Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown say school materials are added to the file as they arrive. The safe practice is still to send them on or before the student deadline.
They are the same idea under two names. Harvard calls it Restrictive Early Action; Princeton and Yale call it Single-Choice Early Action. All three are non-binding, all three close November 1, and all three bar the student from applying early to another private college in the United States. Yale spells out its exceptions: non-binding early programs at public institutions, rolling admission programs, international institutions, and early programs that notify after January 1.
No. Columbia lists the deadline as Sunday, November 1, 2026 on its own page, and the other Ivy League schools hold the same date. Because school offices are closed that day, any counselor document that must go out on deadline day should be sent the Friday before.
Every Ivy League school releases early decisions in mid-December. Regular Decision releases cluster in late March, with Penn and Yale stating by April 1 and Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth stating late March to early April. Exact release dates are announced by each school during the cycle.
Yes. It is free to print, link from a school counseling page, and distribute to students and families. Dates should be reconfirmed on each official admissions page before a school builds an internal calendar around them, because schools occasionally adjust a deadline by a day between cycles.
Sources: Brown University, Application Checklist for First-Year Applicants, Columbia Undergraduate Admissions, How to Apply, Cornell University, First-Year Applicants, Dartmouth Admissions, Apply to Dartmouth, Harvard College, First-Year Applicants, Princeton Admission, Application Dates and Deadlines, Penn Admissions, First-Year Applicants, Yale Admissions, Application Deadlines.
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