By Francesca Henderson
For many seniors, early deadlines for college applications are right around the corner. In fact, the college counseling office says that most of the senior class is applying early to at least one institution. Most universities have Early Action (notified of your decision earlier) and Early Decision (notified of your result earlier, but if you are accepted you MUST attend) deadlines in early to mid November. So, to say the least, there’s a lot of emotion being felt among the senior class. In fact, many of the students who were interviewed requested to not have the names of the institutions that they were applying to shared in hopes of not to jinxing their decision.
For senior Heather Frisch who is hoping to combine her love for STEM and advocacy by double majoring in engineering and political science, the deadline is creating some feelings of anxiety.
“My essays and entire application [are] done,” said Frisch ‘23. But, since this school has taken so much thought and means so much to me now, I keep looking over it and changing little details to make sure it’s perfect. But, in a day or so I’m going to press submit.”
Other students are more stressed about trying to balance their school work with the college application process.
“It’s crazy stressful because I have 11 colleges that I have to apply to before November 1st,” said Morgan Black ‘23. “[That’s] about 20 different supplementals on top of normal school because I’m in like 4 AP classes but thankfully it’s almost over.”
Students who aren’t seniors–and who are, therefore, not familiar with the college process–might be wondering what the point of applying early is.
Well, some schools require you to submit your application early if you want to be considered for merit scholarships. For example, to be eligible for merit scholarships at University of Southern California and Boston College, you must submit your application by November 1st. At Emory University, students must submit their application by November 15th to be eligible for their merit scholarships, The Emory Scholars Program.
While other students apply Early Decision in hopes of boosting their chances of being accepted. For example, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania and Duke University all have higher acceptance rates for Early Decision applicants (22%, 15.6% and 21%, respectively) compared to the acceptance rates of regular decision applicants (9.3%, 9% and 7.7%, respectively).
But some students simply applied early because they loved the school so much.
“For me, the school was perfect,” said Frisch ‘23. “I knew that if I got in, I would choose no other school above it because I loved the school so much.”
