<p>Is it true that sending in applications well before the deadline is helpful for getting scholarship money or financial aid? My daughter's counselor claims that schools can run out of aid money!</p>
<p>Jennifer J.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the financial aid part but my child’s GC strongly recommends getting your application as early as possible (not always possible if you need the help of your first term grades). She said that it’s better to have the adcoms review your application at the start of the process when things are still slow rather than near the deadline when they are looking at hundreds of applications a day. This was someone who was an admissions officer before coming to our school.</p>
<p>I also saw an OpEd type piece a while back written by someone from a Top 20 school (may have even been an Ivy). He said that it’s hard to get excited about an essay after you have read 1,000 of them unless it’s something really special. He also recommended getting your application in early.</p>
<p>Schools do run out of aid money. For instance I saw one post in which Reed College, after running the numbers for the students they wanted to accept, had to back out some number (10?) and go with full pay students instead. Applying early is better. And that gets it out of the way for you!</p>
<p>I believe last year Indiana University Bloomington reached a point where they no longer honored the automatic scholarships posted on their website as they had exhausted their scholarship funding. Those who applied early received merit money - those who applied late, did not.</p>
<p>It was 
more than 100 acceptances that were affected at Reed by the financial meltdown’s hit on the endowment; yield would make it more than 29 matriculants that were affected. But timing wasn’t a factor in this case; it happened two months after the app deadline, and the order received is not a factor at Reed (unless your app arrives after the deadline!).</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction Vossron.</p>