<p>...because the servers at the colleges often crash under the load of the last minute rush. It happens every year here on CC - anguished applicants who couldn't get their apps to go through until after the deadline.</p>
<p>Be smart. Submit a day or two early.</p>
<p>thanks for the advice...i was fearing the same thing.</p>
<p>good advice...i submitted stanford on the last day and nothing bad went wrong, but i was getting really scared throughout the day. definitely send it a few days before the deadline.</p>
<p>i submited my ed app 3 hrs before deadline...nothing happened...i think this only occurs for ucs</p>
<p>Fortunately, I have already done that.</p>
<p>If I were those colleges I'd give the students a grace period -- maybe the application submission website could be open one or two days late or whatnot.</p>
<p>i just finished submitting all my apps about 4 hours ago, now im doing the css profile (which btw is extremely confusing when you do not have parents who will help you with that)</p>
<p>I submitted all my applications a minute or two before the deadline, then again it was early action for all</p>
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If I were those colleges I'd give the students a grace period -- maybe the application submission website could be open one or two days late or whatnot.
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<p>I wouldn't. It's up to the student to remain organised and submit their application in advance.</p>
<p>And then the "grace period" becomes the de facto deadline, and you'll still have people submitting late.</p>
<p>But nobody outside would know about the grace period except students who actually did submit late.</p>
<p>submitting it early is always a good idea... plus you will have the satisfaction that it is finished</p>
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<p>And everyone who posts on this site - don't you think there will be posts that say "Don't worry - there's a grace period. I submitted two days late and was fine"? And then it gets down to the high school level, etc.</p>
<p>Ever try to keep a secret like that?</p>
<p>It's winter, for half the country anyway. So there could also be a problem on the receiving end of your aps. I would HOPE that colleges would provide grace periods if weather closed THEM down. Just consider that we all live on a power grid that can be brought down by freaky weather events or other unpredictables.</p>
<p>In our region (Buffalo) a freak snowstorm on Oct. 14 this past year, waaay out-of-season. With those beautiful fall leaves open, the trees caught 22inches of wet snow like baseball cathers' mitts, and the weight brought brances down onto power lines, snapping hundreds of thousands of trees and powerlines. It put 250,000 families in the dark and cold for a week. Public schools closed, kids couldn't work on computers in most homes, SAT's were abruptly postponed on Fri. night (only in Buffalo and one area of India on that weekend) and it was major stress just to learn about THAT without any phones, tv's or computers to consult. What a mess. My college senior D couldn't come home from Oberlin for fall break because there'd be no place to work or keep warm. My applying S lost a week in his autumn process. Fortunately, our community is famous for working together in response to severe weather. If you're saying to yourself, oh well, that's Buffalo, it couldn't happen here..or there..you're not quite getting my point. </p>
<p>Chedva is so right. Don't wait til the last minute to send electronically. Of course, if you need those final days and hours right now, you might make a different risk assesment, that you want to complete something well and send on deadline, rather than get jumpy and send too soon because of various catastrophe fears.</p>
<p>Maybe, if you have several aps sitting there you might want to send all that please you...and save the trickiest one or two for the "last minute"</p>
<p>has the common app. server ever crashed in the past three years?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Any college would have a grace period. Why wouldn't they want more applications? And they're always pretty lenient about online stuff effing up.</p></li>
<li><p>No college as far as I know shuts down its application as soon as the deadline hits - again, why would they want to turn away applications? Plus, it's only fair to account for different time zones or clocks that are a few minutes off theirs. Like Duke's Robertson application - the day (or the day before?) it was due tihs year, they sent an email out to all applicants saying that they will be accepting applications for 2 days after the deadline to account for different time zones and such.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Be careful with Common App. I applied EA and at 12:00am on November 2nd, it locked my application so that I couldn't make any changes to it and still apply EA. Luckily I called all my colleges first thing in the morning and straightened everything out, but everyone should be warned that CA can and WILL lock you out.</p>
<p>CA can lock you out...</p>
<p>but i don't think it crashes due to high traffic. I was on it Nov. 1st until about 10 pm, which was right before a lot of ED/EA deadlines, and i was just fine.</p>
<p>but still, i'd play it safe and submit sooner</p>
<p>The traffic is much heavier for RD than it is for EA/ED. Many more students are applying. Site crashes are more common.</p>
<p>You just wait - the night of the big deadline there will be threads right here on this forum saying "Aaarggh!!! THE SITE HAS CRASHED! I CAN'T GET IN! I'M SCREWED! WHAT SHOULD I DO?"</p>
<p>Meh...I applied the very last minute ED and I got in. But yeah, I would recommend applying a few days in advance, because that whole day was a nightmare for me.</p>