I just received an email regarding an application extension to Jan 8. Is this only for specific regions? How do we determine if we are in one of those regions?
Here’s what it says on the undergraduate website (which may be identical to your email):
"Our Regular Decision deadline (January 1) has been extended to January 8 for students who have been impacted by severe weather in recent days. You do not need to ask for permission to take advantage of the extension. If you have been impacted by severe weather, you may submit your application by January 8 at 11:59 p.m. (your local time).
As long as the applicant submits their portion of the application by the deadline, it’s okay for other materials arrive later. The materials checklist will appear in your UChicago account in Mid-January."
My guess is that the email was sent to most if not all applicants. It would be too hard to narrow down a region, because how would you figure out where the region starts and stops and what about possible secondary effects?
If I were a cynical person I might also say that it’s being extended to make sure they get all the applicants they can, and that the weather is just a convenient reason.
I mean, I’ll still most likely be submitting on time but it’d be great to have an extra week to review. What happens if nowhere near affected areas? Would it look negatively to take advantage of the extension, and would we even be allowed to?
@Kasami That is exactly my question! Is this an extension for everyone or simply for those that were impacted by the storm…
It’s fair to say that Chicago has never been especially strict about application deadlines, going back to the previous regime. Going on the Common App has made them do stuff like this. When they controlled their own applications, they had what they called the Baker Island Rule: As long as it was December 31 anywhere in the world, your application was on time. And then they extended from there.
As a practical matter, it takes a week or more to get all of the material mailed at the deadline into the right files. They have to cut off the flow sometime, but there’s no pressing need for that time to be midnight on December 31.
Does anyone know if this for everyone applying?
My interpretation is that it’s the honor system. If you were impacted by the severe weather, it applies to you, and if you weren’t, it doesn’t. If you live in, say, Boston, it’s unlikely you were impacted by the severe weather, but maybe you were visiting your aunt in Dallas when a tornado blew up her house and scattered your essay drafts across north Texas and parts of Oklahoma. Maybe you just got anxious and depressed thinking about the storms and flooding elsewhere.
I suspect they’re not going to be devoting a lot of time and energy to checking up on who was really impacted by the weather and who wasn’t. But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do to procrastinate another week on your essays. If the storms didn’t affect you, try to file by the end of the day on Thursday.
@JHS I actually always assumed if you submitted it by 11:59 your time ON January 1st it was fine. At leat that’s how I’ve interpreted the deadlines.
I think that the Common App actually closes submissions at a particular time, which is the same moment, no matter what time zone you are in. Whatever time it is that’s set, usually that of the university itself, or maybe EST. Or at least it used to work that way. So if the deadline was 12:00 midnight CST, it would be 10:00 pm in Los Angeles, and 6:00 am the next morning in London.
I wasn’t paying attention before as to what the original deadline was. It’s Friday, 1/1/16, right?, not Thursday.
No, I believe it is dependent on your time zone… this is what they say on the login page atleast
Can anyone confirm / deny that the extension is only for a select group of people?
This is from UChicago admissions tumblr and the UChicago undergrad admissions webpage:
Regular Decision Deadline
Our Regular Decision deadline (January 1) has been extended to January 8 for students who have been impacted by severe weather in recent days. You do not need to ask for permission to take advantage of the extension. If you have been impacted by severe weather, you may submit your application by January 8 at 11:59 p.m. (your local time).
As long as the applicant submits their portion of the application by the deadline, it’s okay for other materials arrive later. The materials checklist will appear in your UChicago account in Mid-January.
If you have been impacted in any way, then yes, use the deadline extension. If you have not been impacted at all by the floods/major storms/power outages some parts of the country are currently experiencing, then Jan.1 is what you should use.
JHS said it quite well in post #6:
“I suspect they’re not going to be devoting a lot of time and energy to checking up on who was really impacted by the weather and who wasn’t. But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do to procrastinate another week on your essays.”
So yes, this appears to be for a select group of people.
Fyi, three years ago my S applied EA during a hurricane that skimmed our area. We did not loose power, but the school did announce an extension to the deadline. He could have taken advantage of the extra time, but thought that it would not be ethical to take advantage of the opportunity since he wasn’t truly affected.
My question was more geared to, should I apply given the extension? If its not an extension for everyone, then I will not be applying.
Were you affected by the weather? Then take the extension. If not, Jan. 1.
Fortunately I live in the northeast and was unaffected by the weather, but something pretty serious and really unexpected in a very bad way just happened. While I could submit by 1/1, the extra week would seriously help. You think better to take the extension even though I’m clearly outside of the bad weather zone, or just submit on 1/1?
They didn’t offer the extension for other reasons. 1/1 is your deadline.