Dulwich College Beijing proudly shares its first round of offers

The Class of 2022 has already received offers from multiple world-class universities during the early rounds of applications! These stellar offers come from some of the most selective programmes around the world, including Architecture, Law, Physics, PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics), and the Biological Sciences at universities such as Columbia University, Duke University, Imperial College London, Princeton University, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of St Andrews... 

What is the Early Round?

Every system has its own deadlines and timelines, but many universities offer both an early round and a regular round for applications. For the majority of universities, decisions for early round applications are released in December and January. Regular round decisions are typically released by March or April.

DCB's Early Round university offers

Below is a list of all university offers as of 10 January 2022. Decisions will continue to be released throughout the rest of the academic year. 

Which universities have an Early Round?

• In the United States of America, universities usually offer either an Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) application round.
• Early Decision is a binding application, which means students admitted under ED are committed to attending that university (and will withdraw applications from all other universities).

Students admitted under EA can still wait to compare offers from other universities. 

Many universities in Canada, Japan and Greater China also offer a form of early round applications. These applications also receive priority for admission to their top choice of major, so there is a strategic component to applying early. In contrast, universities in the United Kingdom process applications and release decisions on a rolling basis, meaning the application is reviewed as it comes in rather than all decisions being released at the same time (with the exception of the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, which release all decisions on a set date in January after interviewing applicants). 

Universities in countries like South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Germany, and Denmark will not release decisions until much later in the year, waiting for the official IB results in July before issuing a decision.

The Early Round strategy

We advise students to apply in an early round only if their applications are competitive and therefore applying early increases their chances of an offer of admission. Some students need to use all of Term 1 to improve their IB grades, standardised testing, or settle aspects of their application strategy, and therefore waiting for the regular round is their best strategy.

Because ED is a binding application, students should only select a university in ED if they are 100% certain that they would gladly attend that university and would not feel significant regret from not being able to see a decision from any other university. With so many excellent universities and programmes around the world, this is a difficult decision, and many students decide to forego ED because they are applying to universities in multiple countries. 

EA rounds are excellent options for students who want to receive some decisions by early January. Larger universities also grant priority to applicants who apply early, meaning students are more likely to be admitted to more selective programmes.