<p>Should I submit my applications as soon as I'm done with them, or wait until closer to the deadline and tweak things in the meantime? </p>
<p>Applying EA at Stanford (Nov 1) and regular decision but "early" for merit scholarship consideration at Scripps and CMC (deadlines in Nov.). </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>That’s my question too! Everyone’s being telling me to send in everything as early as possible.</p>
<p>Colleges don’t care whether you send it in early or not, as long as its before the deadline.</p>
<p>It is always better to send it in earlier because you never know when the system may over load and go down at the last minute.</p>
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<p>I think the answer is, neither. Too early, and you run the risk that you’ll have awards, honors or accomplishments from your senior fall that come along too late for you to include them. Too close to the deadline, and you run the risk, as OCELITE says, that you’ll experience unexpected technical difficulties either on your end (e.g., power outage) or on the college’s (e.g., server crash).</p>
<p>Last year, my kid aimed to submit her applications about 10 days ahead of the deadlines. It worked out well. It is true, however, that there aren’t bonus points for being early: submitting by the deadline is submitting by the deadline, whether you make it by weeks or minutes.</p>
<p>The answer depends on the college.</p>
<p>For some schools that have rolling admissions, or early action, applying early may be key.
For others it will make no difference at all</p>
<p>If there are specific schools you’re thinking of, you should go to their forums and ask what the policy is there. You’ll get plenty of good advice.</p>
<p>Good point about rolling admissions, Zephyr. If you’re applying to an institution with rolling admissions, then the earlier, the better.</p>
<p>I’m not sure that holds for EA, though. EA has a deadline, right? I think it’s a case where applying by the deadline is applying by the deadline, period.</p>
<p>Generally, the earlier it is it can’t hurt you, unless you have some kind of award or honor that will arrive right before the deadline. If you wait too late, there’s always lots of traffic on the site.</p>
<p>While touring the U of Miami the admissions counselor recommended applying early action because the pool of students is smaller giving applicants more of a chance of admission. Of course she might have been just trying to encourage people to apply early so they are not overwhelmed at the end</p>
<p>If you get another award after you’ve submitted the application, you can send a letter telling them about it–obviously, you wouldn’t do this if it was something dinky, but if it’s substantial, you can send it in, and it will be added to your file.</p>
<p>None of my schools have rolling admission. But I’ve read that at least some schools, when they get to reviewing them, review them in the order in which they were received. So being on top (having submitted early) would seem to be better – the reviewer’s mind hasn’t been numbed yet.</p>
<p>I’d probably go to the sub-forum for the specific school and ask there about when to apply. People may have some insight.</p>