Please tell me I’m not going crazy and Vanderbilt wasn’t due on the 1st as of yesterday? I submitted my application over a week ago, but I’m surprised they would push it back. Does that mean they haven’t received their desired amount of applications yet?
You’re not going crazy–they also extended their merit scholarship application deadlines until the 3rd!
They do the same thing pretty much every year. I think there are always a ton of kids sending emails to the admissions office asking to send it in late, or giving some excuse why they missed the deadline (often because recommenders procrastinate with their letters). They probably figure, “why not?”
@fdgjfg : I think most schools will wait a little for the rec. letters though. We know what this is and many schools do it…It is some mixture of the weather issues and other interests…
yep…they all want as many applicants as possible registered…some other colleges will continue to extend and soften their application deadlines…because doing so may enhance their applicant pool and improve the quality of the class or additional private pay students…Vandy has such a large pool of applicants they don’t really need to keep extending but they have been known to do so when any region of the USA had weather issues that made things harder for students to get it all together
@Faline2 : What is up with the January 1 deadlines? I thought it used to be January 15 years ago. Were they at one point trying to cut down on volume a little or did they want to align it with many of the graduate school deadlines?
*Also, none of these schools “need” to extend it as they all have unusually large app. pools (if you are a medium sized private with anything near or far over 20k, you have a ridiculous amount of applicants), but alumni and incoming students are slightly naive in some respects so like to see annual increases in the applicant pool and the SAT scores (even if by ten or less points…they will sit there and say "oh my goodness, I’m so excited that they are smarter than me…they usually aren’t and many faculty will tell the truth about that) or any superficial thing that “may” lead to a rank increase (I think USNWR has caught on a while ago). The selectivity and application count is ultimately “popularity” and for any elite it functions as a huge marketing ploy. Chicago has seen the consequences of focusing on it very heavily, both good and bad (I think their alumni are much more mixed on the new paradigm because some fear what it will ultimately do to campus culture. Some like that it will become more “normal” and others don’t. But they were never the student body to be blown away by increases in scores and app. numbers because they knew it was more like a deliberate decision by the admissions office and administration to take a new approach, it was not because Chicago was “discovered” all of the sudden by outsiders. On the other hand, Ivy Leaguers obsess over it).