<p>I was the first one amongst my friends to start doing applications (and the first one to start looking at colleges waaay back), but I am now the last one to finish them. I'm applying to eleven schools and I've submitted TWO applications.</p>
<p>Why? BECAUSE I OBSESS!</p>
<p>I wrote and rewrote my commonapp essay well over ten times and it took me a month of strong dedication to get my Yale (SCEA) essay where I wanted it.</p>
<p>My parents are now pushing me to get my apps in ASAP, thinking that it's going to help, even though none of the schools are rolling.</p>
<p>So my question is, if you're in my situation, do you...
1. Keep being a perfectionist and submit a flawless (at least in your opinion) app Dec. 31
2. Submit a very good, but not flawless app now and get it over with</p>
<p>Specifically, I just want to be sure there's no real cost to waiting until the deadline in terms of my chances, as long as admissions isn't rolling, right?</p>
<p>Colleges generally admit you get a better read if you apply early. It only makes sense, the adcom are fresher at the start of the cycle. It's too late to be early for this year, so I'd go with perfection.</p>
<p>We overachievers tend to have a deflated sense of our own work. Have someone (who knows the caliber of applications received by your schools) read it over. Or five someones, if you're me. It doesn't need to win a Nobel Prize--it just has to be you, at your best.</p>
<p>As soon as my son hears back ED he'll send all the common applications on their way, and request scores etc be sent from the school (along with teacher recs), then he'll take some time to finish up the supplements and send those in. So while schools won't have his ENTIRE application, they will know he's applying. I just didn't see the point from a financial standpoint of sending all those fees if he got in ED to his number 1.</p>
<p>he's basing that off of what his sense and intuition would tell him. it makes sense, but really, there's no difference. The app readers try to stay consistent - because they are human, of course they dont, but they dont just see an app and decide in or out, they file them away for the next round of selection, so the earlyish apps that are good eventually get compared with the other good apps when they are down to the apps that are real tough to eliminate. If you're app was good enough to get to that stage, then it will get there whether you applied early or not.</p>
<p>I can't honestly site a source. With 3 kids applying to selective colleges over the last 8 years I've heard it many times and it just makes sense to me. Think how tired and jaded adcom become by the deadline. I remember one telling a group that essays were very important because a good one will wake them up after reading about scores of kids who thought their achievements in MUN and Deca were impressive.</p>
<p>If I'm in your situation I just write the essay when I feel like it and then read it over and revise if necessary and then submit it when it sounds good. But it sounds like that would be difficult for you...</p>
<p>I've heard from multiple people that apps aren't necessarily read in the order that they are received (as long as it's by the deadline), though it does of course help to be one of the first read.</p>