While May 1 is the day by which students must decide to accept or reject an offer of admission from a college — by then most institutions have made their admissions decisions —it is also the day that most students reflect on the application process. They will think about what they did correctly, what they could have done better, when they applied and just how much money was spent applying to college.

One of the biggest choices made by high school seniors applying for college — aside from where they want to apply — is deciding whether to apply early decision, early action or regular decision. The difference on the surface is just the word preceding "decision," but when it comes to college applications, when one applies makes all the difference.

Early decision is a binding contract between the school of the student's choice and the student (and their parents). Students accepted under the early-decision program are obligated to attend that school unless they can cite financial obligations. Most early-decision applications were due in November and the decisions were released by mid-December.

"If you get in (under early decision), you don't have to wait as long to find out if you got in or not, and it gets the process out of the way," said Santa Fe High senior Kaitlynn Van Kampen, who applied early decision to Columbia University.

"If you apply early decision, it means that you really want to go to that school and the college notices that," said Eryn Hays, a Santa Fe High senior who was accepted to Drew University under early decision.

In fact, applying early does increase one's chance of getting in.

While some are comfortable applying to their first-choice college under early decision, others choose early action so they can be assured of an offer of admission before they apply to their "reach" schools — those that are harder to get into. Early action is essentially a student's choice to apply to a school in November and be informed of the college's decision by December.

The difference between early action and early decision, though, is that early-action applications are not binding and students have to inform the institution of their decisions by May 1.

"Most of the schools I really wanted to go to didn't have early action," said Stowe McMurry, a Santa Fe High student who applied early action to four schools. "I just applied to schools that offer early action, but in my opinion they tend to be safety schools."

The reason some people choose to apply to the colleges within the regular decision deadline (those application admissions are typically released in mid-April) is to curb the cost of applying (fees can be as much as $80 and it costs $10 per school to send SAT or ACT scores); to increase their chances of acceptance to their dream school; and because there are programs that make it easy.

The Common Application, which, according to its website (commonapp.org) was started in 1975 with 15 schools, has become a website that streamlines the application process for students by cutting down on the amount of forms that need to be filled out.

It features a basic application that all members fill out, which includes an essay as well as basic biographical information. Some of the 415 schools that use the common application require a supplement, which is a separate application that can include short answer questions or another essay (one of the University of Chicago's essay prompts was "find x"), and some only require the basic common application form.

The common application, while convenient, has arguably been a leading contributor to the rise of regular-decision applications and the decline of the percentage of students accepted — especially to some of the most selective schools.

However, Columbia University in New York, one of the Ivy League East Coast schools, reported a rise in early-decision applications.

According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, both Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science applications rose 7.2 percent from last year's early-decision pool.

In the same article, the Spectator attributed this rise to the March 2010 decision by Jessica Marinaccio, Columbia dean of undergraduate admissions, to adopt the common application.

Still, when students are unsure of what their families can afford or where they want to go, they apply at several schools.

"I applied to 12 schools overall, mostly because I have difficulty making up my mind. It isn't so much the financial aspect, but that matters a lot to me," said Emma Ensign-Church, a Santa Fe High student.

Many students who apply to college try to reduce the number of schools they apply to in order to save money, but others see it as a worthy cause.

"I applied to 11 schools on the gamble that one of them would end up being the right match for me both financially and academically and to ensure that I had choices," said Sonja Dangler, a Santa Fe High School senior. "As for the cost, we decided as a family that in the long run it would save us money because I will be able to go to a school that gives me the best value, so the application fees were irrelevant in the long run."

Whatever one's preference may be — a small liberal-arts school like Kenyon College, a desert-town school like New Mexico State University, or an Ivy League university like Dartmouth or Cornell, the consensus is that when you apply matters and when it comes to deciding where to spend four years of one's life, the limit is whatever a person wants it to be.

David J. Salazar is a senior at Santa Fe High School. He plans to attend Columbia University in the fall. You can reach him at davidjsalazar@gmail.com.