College App Deadlines

As you start through the college application process you will be exposed to a variety of new terms. One area that can be confusing is what all of the different application deadlines such as Early Decision, Early Action, Regular Decision and Rolling Admissions mean.

Early Decision

The key to remember with Early Decision is that it is a final decision and a COMMITMENT! Applying to a school in this program is considered a contract between the student and the college. You can apply to only one school as an Early Decision school. If you are accepted, you are promising to withdraw all other applications. Few students will ultimately apply to a school Early Decision because you are promising to attend the school - without seeing their financial aid package - and most students are not 100% certain that they want to attend one particular school. If you are considering applying to a school under the Early Decision program, please stop in and talk to me as there will also be a form I need to complete for you.

Early Action

This is a non-binding option and significantly more students will apply to schools using this option. Early Action has an earlier application deadline and students will typically learn if they have been accepted to the school much earlier than regular decision dates. (Some schools will defer an admissions decision to the Regular Decision deadline if the student is on the bubble and they want to wait to see how the rest of the applications will look.) Early Action is not a contract and, as a student, you are not obligated to attend school at that institution.

Regular Decision

This is the deadline that you will generally see publicized from colleges as it is the most common. This means you are applying and will hear your decision on their regular time schedule. There are no commitments or early notifications. It is important to note that the Regular Admissions deadlines are often AFTER the deadline for scholarship consideration – which adds in a whole additional set of deadlines to watch, but that is a different story for another day.

Rolling Admissions

This means that the colleges look at each application as they arrive and they make a decision as they go. So, if you apply quickly to a school with rolling admissions you are generally going to receive your admissions decision quickly. Schools that function with a rolling admissions policy of evaluating applications will still generally have a regular decision deadline which is the final date that the college is willing to accept any applications for the fall class.  (Although not one of my students, I did hear last week that a WKHS student who had completed her application at a school that practices rolling admissions has already heard back that she was accepted.)

It is really important to be watching your deadlines carefully – I can’t stress that enough!  College deadlines are different than high school deadlines where we will usually be able to adjust or adapt if you don't get something turned in on time.  And you need to know what the timeline is for being able to complete all of your applications so you need to start with the end target date in mind if you are going to be able to plan and organize your time effectively.

Also, FYI - I will be out of the building all day tomorrow for an articulation meeting - this is a meeting where all of the high school counselors meet with all of the 2-year and 4-year public and private colleges to learn their latest admissions updates, what they are looking for in students, what suggestions, hints or other "lessons learned" types of feedback they can provide to us so that we can be our most effective when working with you.  So, I hope you had a long weekend and I cannot wait to hear about it on Wednesday when I'm back in the building.