Established in 1869, Purdue University is a well-respected public institution for higher education with an urban campus spanning nearly 2,500 square acres of Lafayette, IN.
According to the 2022 edition of US News and World Report’s annual list of best national university rankings, Purdue University is currently tied for being the #51 best college in the country.
If you are a current high school student searching for the perfect college to attend, you may find it worthwhile to learn a bit more about what Purdue University has to offer.
It is quite an excellent school in many regards. For example, Purdue boasts a modest student-to-faculty ratio of 14:1, offering students the opportunity to receive ample one-on-one attention from the college’s highly educated instructing faculty, as well as develop close academic relationships with peers in an intimate learning environment.
On top of that, the college has a first-year retention rate — an indication of how content students are at a given school — of 92%, strongly suggesting that students who choose Purdue are pleased to have done so.
One way to increase your odds of being accepted into Purdue — or any other school you can dream of — is to submit your application as early as reasonably possible.
There are many reasons that applying early is associated with an increased likelihood of acceptance, although most schools evaluate both early and regular applications according to the same standards.
Early decision is not among the admission options offered at Purdue; fortunately for the early birds of the world, however, they do have early action, an expedited, non-binding potential path to admission.
To help you understand early action application at Purdue, we have compiled the following article outlining some of the most important things to know about the process.
Read on to find out what Purdue’s early action acceptance rates are, when the application deadline is, and much more.
Purdue Early Action Acceptance Rate
Currently, Purdue does not publish its early action acceptance rate.
However, it is reasonable to expect that the early action acceptance rate at Purdue is higher than its regular action acceptance rate, which is about 60%.
That being said, applying early certainly cannot make up for poor academic performance. Who you are — inside and outside of the classroom — is ultimately the most important factor in determining whether or not you will be accepted into any school.
There is also the perhaps unfortunate reality that for a vast number of different reasons, a college’s acceptance rates can vary significantly from program to program and from year to year.
Factors such as the number of applications the school receives, the relative strength of the year’s applicant pool, and various other external circumstances are just a few of the plethora of conditions that influence an individual applicant’s likelihood of acceptance in a given application cycle.
Purdue Early Action Decision Date
For those who choose to apply to Purdue University through the early action program, admissions decisions are released by January 15 each year.
It is interesting to note that this is the same day as the regular decision application deadline, so the review process for early action applicants begins just as remaining applications are trickling into Purdue’s admissions office.
For the sake of further comparison, first-year applicants who opt for the regular decision application path can generally expect to receive notification regarding whether or not they have been accepted to Purdue on March 18 each year — an entire two months later.
This leads us to one of the most appealing parts of the idea of applying to colleges early: time.
At Purdue University, all accepted applicants — including both those who choose early action and those who go for regular decision — looking to enroll at the school starting in the fall semester have until May 1 to accept or decline their offer for admission.
This means that although early action applicants are under more pressure to submit the completed application before the deadline, they also get the benefit of having more time to weigh the pros and cons of each college to which they are accepted, allowing for a slow, well-informed college decision to be made.
On the other hand, regular decision applicants have less time between application submission and the enrollment deadline.
Compared to early action applicants, however, the regular decision group has more time to carefully fill out the application information, craft a compelling personal statement, and ensure that all required supplemental materials are collected in time.
In sum, there are pros and cons to each of these admissions options, so it is important to do your research and choose the one that is best for you.
Purdue Early Action Deadline
The deadline for applying to Purdue University through their early action program is November 1 each year. In addition to the application itself, all other required materials also must be submitted by this date.
All applicants who are interested in the veterinary nursing program are required to apply by the November 1 early action deadline as well.
Prospective students who would like to be considered for admission to the John Martinson Honors College or for any of Purdue’s many scholarship awards also need to turn in the desired applications by the beginning of November.
November 1 is also the priority application deadline for the following three programs: computer science, first-year engineering, and professional flight technology.
After the priority deadline, Purdue admissions will continue to accept later applicants until there are no more open seats in their programs.
Purdue generally makes their first-year application available online at the beginning of August. This means that students who want to apply early to the school have a solid four months to work on the application.
For the sake of comparison, the regular decision application deadline is January 15 each year. This means that regular decision applicants have around two months longer to work on the application than early action applicants.
Getting more time to complete the application comes with a trade off, however: regular decision applicants have to wait far longer to hear back from admissions regarding whether or not they have been accepted.
Students who apply by the early action application deadline can expect to receive notification of their admissions decision by about January 15 each year — the same date as the regular decision application deadline.
The decision date for regular decision applicants, on the other hand, is not until around March 31.
How to Apply to Purdue University for Early Action
All Purdue applicants — meaning both early action and regular decision — are required to apply using the Common Application.
In addition to general information regarding the applicant’s personal and academic background, the application also includes a small series of Purdue-specific questions that all applicants must answer.
The Common Application also includes one required personal essay, intended to provide the applicant an opportunity to show the admissions department essential parts of who they are as an individual, especially those parts which may not be shown through other portions of the application.
Another required component of the Purdue application bundle includes self-reported SAT or ACT scores, with no preference for one or the other.
The school advises prospective early action applicants to take one or both of the two tests in the spring semester of the junior year in order to ensure that scores are returned prior to the application deadline.
Applicants must self-report all of the grades they earned during high school as well.
Purdue applicants who are offered admission to the school through their early action program should be aware that it is important that they maintain strong grades for their final semester of high school, since acceptance can be revoked due to sudden drops in grades.
For any applicants who are citizens of any country other than the United States, proof of proficiency in the English language is another requirement for admission. Purdue accepts several different tests as evidence of English proficiency, provided that whatever scores the student chooses to report were earned within two years of the date of applying.
The last step to applying to Purdue University for early action is to ensure that all required materials are submitted well before the deadline, which is November 1 each year. This includes paying the nonrefundable application fee or a qualified fee waiver.
