<p>I agree. I think if it came out sooner, the process would be more arduous and painful. We’ve been working on the application for virtually the last year, but actually completing the applications in a short span of time just makes it seem like it’s all happening at once.</p>
<p>You know, I’m actually a big proponent of the schools waiting until later to release the essays. </p>
<p>For example, last summer I ran competitive track and field, so I was all over the state for competitons/training/etc. I also had friends who traveled, or participated in intense research programs, as well as friends who stayed at home and didn’t do much during the summer. A lot of these colleges want you to spend your time doing something fulfilling and actually becoming a well-rounded individual, and not just someone who devotes their entire summer to college applications. I’m also glad the essays came out at a time when EVERYONE was equally stressed with heavy workloads. That way, an Adcom is not comparing an individual who has the ability to master the art of writing even while under stress, to an individual who can only master the art of writing when he/she is least stressed.</p>
<p>If you have a mountain on your plate and you can still churn out a fantastic essay, in my opinion, you’d look really good to a college. Whereas if your essays aren’t that good and you blame it on “not having enough time”, you look as if you can’t handle the rigour of that college, because you’ll have a lot of papers due regardless of your workload/stress level.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>Admissions departments have more than enough reasons to not open the process sooner.</p>
<p>AS a volunteer admissions ambassador for my alta mater and working directly with the admissions departments, I’m happy to bore you guys with all these reasons.</p>
<p>But in short, it is very important for admissions departments to release supplements within their respective timeframes.</p>
<p>As a family we viewed the college-application-process as very fluid. The very first step was to apply -Very early (rolling admission) - to a few large state U’s to gauge applicants competitiveness. Hearing back in the Fall meant we had a benchmark against which all others could be compared.</p>
<p>I’m feeling terrible and butterflies in my stomach!
you can start to work on the application in 40 hours. so, cheers.
it won’t take long to fill out application if everything is done in an efficient way.</p>
<p>Wanted to start working on them since beginning of summer :/</p>
<p>Although many of the colleges will release their supplementary essays late for this year, a few of them have already revealed them in July.</p>
<p>i’m going into my freshman year of college at University of Washington. one thing I will tell you is that they used the same essay questions three years in a row prior to my year of applying, and this year was no different. so, I bet that other schools are similar. so, merely looking at prompts from the last year could help you immensely.</p>
<p>Wasn’t it up at 8 pm EST the night before (aka today) last year?</p>
<p>My son graduated from college in May, so I have been through this process before. And my daughter is a rising high school senior, getting ready for four AP classes in Sept. I, too, am unhappy that all the college supplement and essay topics are not ready. My daughter is a high school and club gymnast, and her high school season runs from mid-August through to Thanksgiving. Then she has club season until June. So these past six weeks would have been really helpful. The process <em>is</em> daunting and important, and we’re not just panicking over nothing. That being said, we’ll get it done.</p>
<p>Just got on Common App (8 am Eastern) and it says “We’re sorry. It seems you’ve encountered a part of our system that is under maintenance. We’re busy adding system enhancements, and ask that you please try this action again later.
We appreciate your patience.
The Common App Team”</p>
<p>It’s back up. The server is probably overloaded.</p>
<p>Back up (sometimes), but no supplements (and no supplemental essays) are available. And no print preview.</p>
<p>I’m kind of annoyed too. Once school year starts, I’m going to be very busy, but I’m trying to do as much as possible now. Only three of the eleven colleges I’m applying to have their applications up though, but whatever, I’ll make it work.</p>
<p>This is super frustrating. The majority of us are focused and would have utilized July very efficiently.</p>
<p>But then again it allows the procrastinators to seem on pace with everyone else haha</p>
<p>What makes it rather funny is that many colleges have put their essay topics on their websites, but no sign of them on the Comm App site. I have this vision of one very old guy with a green eyeshade manually typing all the essay topics onto the Comm App website, but not being able to keep up with the incoming mail.</p>
<p>SoCalDad2, just wanted to thank you for that piece of information. I was also frustrated because I was trying to get two particular applications ready to go and yet couldn’t pull up the essays on the common app site. Went to the home sites of the colleges and boom, they were there. Thank you.</p>
<p>the irritiating thing in the college search process to make a proper lasso for selecting schools is the lack of an up to date NPC - I know know , greedy. only a cpl yrs ago , there was NADA in the price data. But still, i had hopes that I cd find the right prices and many / most are asking about 2011 income taxes - meaning old non updated pricing schedules.</p>