<p>My counselor told me a story last year about a guy who applied to a school that pretty much everyone can get into with a 4.0 GPA, and got waitlisted because he applied right before the deadline -- he made it, he just applied a few days before. I'm really worried now because I applied not more than 2 weeks before each of my 10 schools' final deadlines! I've been told over and over how important it is to apply early, but I took a lot of extra time revising and rewriting essays. Does it look really bad to have submitted my apps only a few days (or THE day) before the final deadline? I'm so worried!!</p>
<p>Why does this urban legend keep getting tossed around? </p>
<p>It doesn’t pass the common sense test on many fronts.</p>
<p>1) When the student applies is not related to when the student’s application is completed and ready for evaluation. Other supporting docs come in at various times – often not connected with any stated deadlines for the student. Since these are out of the control of the applicant, why should a school give advantage or disadvantage to when the file is completed and ready for examination?</p>
<p>2) Colleges expend vast resources (money and manhours) to get great applicants. Then they turn around and establish capricious and petty administrative rules to diminish a certain batch of applications based on un-controllable administrative reasons? Does this make sense?</p>
<p>You’re last minute applicant in the anecdote – was probably just marginal. How can anyone conclude it was due to when his/her application was submitted? As stated earlier, when it was submitted has little to do with when it’s read.</p>
<p>Where applying early comes into play are public schools with rolling admissions. For set-deadline schools, these unpromulgated fears are just myths.</p>
<p>They are akin to the hundreds of “freak out” postings by kids who worry about some doc or score report that didn’t get to the admissions office before the stroke of midnight Dec 31. Again: apply common sense and logic.</p>
<p>Relax. You’re OK. If you get accepted/rejected, it won’t be because of the timestamp on your submitted docs. It’ll be because of the* content.*</p>
<p>Okay that makes sense, thank you so much!</p>
<p>I know Harvard and Princeton prefer RD apps to be in before December 15th. Presumably because they don’t want “sloppy seconds” on EA rejects.</p>
<p>Edit: 500th post!</p>
<p>My mom was talking to me about this and I know that it applies to a couple of colleges (most likely the premier ones such as Rush10 stated with H&P) but for the most part the answer is “no” unless it is a rolling admissions college (but they all suck anyways).</p>
<p>Well that kinda sucks, cause I think I sent my Princeton app on the 30th. And for Harvard I did SCEA and sent it on the 1st of November. Now I can’t help but wonder if I would have still gotten deferred had I sent it earlier.</p>
<p>H&P wanted RD apps in early because they used to not have SCEA until this year. They wanted to not get crushed on Jan-01.</p>
<p>Alisyn: read what I wrote in post #2. If that doesn’t calm you, then you’re just set on wanting to worry. What about “content” versus deadline is to be misconstrued?</p>
<p>Oh, no, I’m not worried. I heard this story before applying, yet I still sent most of my applications close to the deadline.</p>
<p>My daughter got into nearly all her HYP type schools and she was the ultimate procrastinator. I doubt a single one went in more than 12 hours before the deadline. Stop worrying!</p>
<p>Ah, procrastination… We are the best of friends…
Congratulations to your daughter!</p>
<p>Some colleges have deadlines with decisions dates. For example, The University of Georgia has a deadline of January 15. They make decisions after that. So if your application arrives earlier or later, it doesn’t matter, as they don’t “look” at them until after January 15.
Other colleges have rolling admissions. That means they can decide on admission as soon as they receive an application. It also means they can fill up before their deadline. So applying earlier here is safer.
By the way, LSU does rolling admissions and doesn’t suck.</p>
<p>Personally, I think my Columbia app was about 30 seconds late, and I was admitted there. After getting into a good university EA, I didn’t apply to Williams. I did have a half-finished application still sitting there on Jan 3 or 4, though, when they emailed me to the effect of “oh please do finish your application, don’t worry about the extra couple days; we wish you’d obeyed the deadline, but we’ll still consider you.” I think Williams is a particularly nice place, but those are a couple personal anecdotes to back up T2’s (correct) point.</p>
<p>I applied late by about 5 minutes to Stanford and still got in. Unless it’s rolling admissions, the time before the deadline shouldn’t make a difference.</p>
<p>Note: don’t apply late though. Most stressful weeks of waiting ever! And it would probably hurt your chances.</p>
<p>For rolling admissions, I think it’s more difficult to get accepted if you apply right before the deadline, but otherwise I don’t think it matters much at all.</p>