Is it true that if say, the application deadline is 1/1, and you submit the application 12/1, the college will start evaluating your app or will place your app as one of the first they review? Does this influence decisions in anyway?
No, early submission doesn’t matter at all. They are probably tied up evaluating the ED applications right now. So if you are hurrying to get your RD app in hoping it will give you a boost, save yourself the energy.
Unless the school practices rolling admission it will make no difference.
@iwannabe_Brown , Im not too sure about what you mean by rolling admission. I have heard that schools like Cornell University do rolling admission notification but they say that the hard deadline is 1/1. Thus, if such schools were rolling, applicants hear back earlier. Also wouldn’t applying earlier mean they consider your application earlier?
I was at an info session with HYP and UVA. Same question was asked. Universal answer? Not in the slightest.
This is getting to be straw grasping…
Cornell does not use rolling admissions since the Ivy League agreement requires that notifications be sent out on only 2 days each year - the ED/SCEA notification date in december and the RD notification at the end of march. https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/apply/fine-print/common-ivy-league-agreement
I’m much more knowledgable about rolling admissions in medical school admissions (where it’s quite common) but I’ve never seen anyone on here indicate that I’m wrong when I apply it to undergrad so I’ll continue to do so.
Rolling admissions means that there is no set, single notification date for applicants. As applications come in, the admissions committee reviews them in generally the order in which they are received (e.g. every 2 weeks they review all the applications submitted). The adcom evaluates and decides on those applications and depending on the school, students are then sent acceptance, rejection, deferral or waitlist notifications. At some schools, they will defer kids to the next group of applicants, at others if they’re not accepted or rejected, they get put on the waitlist to be evaluated in the spring. Notifications will be sent out to students on some sort of regular basis based on the frequency of the adcom meetings.
In this type of system, an earlier submission means an earlier read and absolutely improves your chances. In non rolling schools, they don’t necessarily read the applications anything close to the order in which they were submitted and they don’t finalize the class until they have reviewed everything; thus, there is 0 advantage to an earlier submission.