<p>I'll become a senior after this spring semester and summer break, and I'm confused about the whole college application process. I know each college has different deadlines, but in general, when does the application process begin (what month?) and in what month are most deadlines for "early action" and "regular application"?</p>
<p>Applications are usually posted some time in July. Early action applications are usually due in early November, and regular applications are usually due around early January/late December.</p>
<p>Once you get your final list ready, check each school website for important dates, not just for applications but for financial aid as well, if you will be applying.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Also, be sure to include a couple of financial safety schools to your list. These are schools that are affordable or will give you assured scholarships which make them affordable. Don’t assume a school is going to give you the aid you need to go there. Many kids discovered this year that their safeties weren’t affordable because they thought they’d get more aid.</p>
<p>^^^ And for those financial safeties—make sure they’re places you’d be happy (or at least content) going to. There are lots of threads started by students in April along the lines of “What do I do now? I don’t want to go to the only school I/my parents can afford.”</p>
<p>As for things you can/should do now and over the summer:</p>
<p>1) Talk to your parents about the financial aspect of things. How much are they willing to spend? Are there conditions on the upper limit of what they’re willing to spend? (example–We’ll spend $xx on an engineering school, but only $x for a LAC regardless of its rating.)</p>
<p>2) With your parent, use a financial aid calculator (you can find one on the collegeboard site) or fill out a 2010-11 FAFSA just to get a ball park figure of what your family’s EFC is. Compare the EFC to your parents’ answer to #1. If the EFC is significantly greater than what your parents can (or are willing to) spend, then working on coming up with a strategy to identify financial safeties is critical. Ask for help here—you’ll get a ton of useful advice. But everyone will need to know both EFC and what your parents can spend before they can help.</p>
<p>3) Start a spreadsheet for the places you’re thinking of applying. That way you’ll have a central place to keep all the deadlines AND also keep useful info about the cost of the school, information on any merit aid (automatic or competitive?), and deadlines for completing all parts of the application, the application for financial aid, and the application for merit awards.</p>
<p>4) Work on deciding what you want from a college. Possible majors? Size? Location? Opportunities for research? Opportunities to continue participating in one or more of your current ECs? Live on campus all four years? Or move off campus? And when? All those things will help determine whether a given college should be put on your tentative list to investigate further. But if you’re really unsure about something, be flexible and include a range of schools until you know more about what you’re looking for. Then read web pages for colleges and try to visit a few local ones to help figure out what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>Can you send all your applications as “early action”? I have a little idea on what that term, along with “early decision” means, but I’m not entirely sure. Thanks for all the input by the way…</p>
<p>You can generally send as many applications early action as you’d like (a few colleges say that if you apply to them early you cannot apply to any other school early), but not all colleges offer an EA application.</p>
<p>Early decision is mostly the same as EA. The only difference (very important difference) though is that by applying ED, you are promising to attend the college if you get accepted. If you get accepted ED and then decide not to go, a variety of fun and exciting bad consequences can happen.</p>
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<p>Again—read the instructions and rules for each college very, very carefully. Most early action (EA) schools don’t restrict the number of other EA applications you send to other schools, but a few do.</p>
<p>In addition to regular decision (RD) applications:</p>
<pre><code>some schools offer only ED (binding—i.e. you promise
to go there if accepted and bad things can happen if you
decide to break your promise)
</code></pre>
<p>and</p>
<pre><code>some schools offer only EA (typically not-binding—i.e. you
don’t promise to go there if accepted)
</code></pre>
<p>I don’t know of any school right off the top of my head that offers both EA and ED.</p>
<p>Some schools don’t offer either ED or EA. All their applications are treated as RD or rolling. Also schools can change EA/ED policies from one application cycle to the next, and the new information may not make it into the various college guides. So it will be important to read the web sites of the individual colleges. Look for a tab or link for Admissions. Right now, the colleges are still set up for the 2009-10 cycle since the admissions offices are busy dealing with paperwork of accepted students deciding to accept or decline admission offers. They’ll switch over to the 2010-11 admission cycle sometime between July and September. It varies from school to school</p>
<p>And by the way, the difference between rolling and RD (regular decision) is usually a difference in deadlines. RD schools usually have a hard application deadline and send you their decision on or shortly before April 1. Rolling admission schools accept and process applications as they come in. You get your decision x number of weeks after the school receives the complete application. The value of x varies from college to college. A rolling admission school may have a priority deadline of some sort (sometimes tied to consideration for merit aid) and a regular deadline where they promise full consideration of all applications received by that date. Other rolling schools simply accept applications until they’ve admitted as many students as they need to guarantee filling their freshman class by the time students have to say Yes or No on May 1.</p>
<p>“by applying ED, you are promising to attend the college if you get accepted”</p>
<p>“ED (binding—i.e. you promise to go there if accepted and bad things can happen if you decide to break your promise)”</p>
<p>If you apply ED and also ask for financial aid, you can decline the admittance offer without consequence if the amount offered is insufficient (your decision) to support attendance. From the Common Application early decision agreement:
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>But you should apply ED only to your one dream school, and not care about comparing financial aid packages.</p>
<p>A couple of other things:</p>
<p>This summer, you can start thinking about essay topics. </p>
<p>And once you’re back at school in the fall, decide which teachers you’d like to write recommendation letters for you, and then ask them if they’d be willing to. They won’t need to actually do it until a little later, but it’s courteous to get them lined up early.</p>