I’ve been working on all my applications non-stop for the past week, but unfortunately was still working on perfecting my “Why Northwestern” essay late last night and didn’t make the deadline. It’s one of my top choices, so I continued to work on it all night (until I accidentally fell asleep) and all of this morning (after I woke up) because I hated the idea of not even trying to submit it and potentially be considered for admission, and then ultimately submitted everything at around noon today.
I know I’ve heard that schools generally have grace periods for application submission, but I obviously don’t want to incorrectly assume that every school will have a generous grace period and that a late submission will be fine. With Northwestern, I have two questions:
- Do I have any chance at all of being considered with a late submission?
- Is it better to email the admissions office, apologize for my mistake, and ask if they will consider my application, or is it better to just not call attention to it and watch for portal emails/download notifications on the Common App? My instinct just in terms of being courteous would have been to email and apologize, but since I don't have any valid reason for being late other than being sick the past week and being a perfectionist, I wanted to make sure that emailing and apologizing and asking for consideration WITHOUT offering a reason for WHY I submitted late was a good plan.