Application cycles starting in mid-February when RD results are out in April and decisions in May? Thats not even remotely practical. Nor would be moving the RD acceptances/ decisions to late spring/early summer when school is out and any input/assistance from counselors would be essentially impossible.
It seems to me that most posters on this thread are assuming that the extensions work to the benefit of kids who should be castigated for procrastinating. But I don’t think that the procrastinators are the intended targets or primary beneficiaries of the deadline extensions.
I think that the colleges want to keep their overall admission pool numbers up, or may have particular demographic or diversity goals to meet… and they extend deadlines because they want more applicants. When the extensions are offered via emails to specific students, they are very likely targeted to students who are likely to fill those needs.
And I think that the students who get those extension offers are students who have applied elsewhere and deliberately chose not to apply to the extension-offering school, but may respond to the extension offer, particularly if they are starting to worry about admission outcomes for their top choice colleges.
At least that was my experience with my own kids. It’s more a matter of admissions jitters, or perhaps a willingness to take a second look at a previously discarded option after the pressure is off for submissions of the initial round of applications.
@calmom, that may gel at least with GWU, who posted that their extension resulted in a more underrepresented students applying. I don’t remember the exact wording but I think they mentioned around 600 more. If they are targeted emails that makes more sense for this objective than a widely publicized blanket extension.
I think, IIRC, the top schools sent targeted extensions (some were applicants who started but didn’t complete their applications, etc). The lower tier schools , like RWU, that needed more overall applicants simply extended the deadline.
Not sure if this thread is closed, but I wanted to add that my son received an email from Georgetown University offering an extension to finish his application by March 15. He had originally started an application and sent for teacher and counselor recommendations, and sent in test scores all before the original deadline of Jan. 10; The only part missing were the three essays. When the first deadline passed, Georgetown sent an email offering him an extension to Jan. 21 to complete the application, otherwise the university will assume he’s no longer interested. My son let that date pass by without completing the application and declined to respond to the interview request. Then, out of nowhere, he got the latest email for the extension to complete the application a few days ago.