S plans to apply RD. Is there any benefit to submitting before he hears from his ED school - does Wash U track (date stamp) when the applications are submitted?
Hi @stemmmm, I would think that all universities stamp when applications arrive. However, I have no idea if that helps an applicant. Good luck to your son. Where did he ED? My D ED’d to Wash U.
No advantage that D saw in submitting RD apps before she got her ED decision back from WashU.
She knew ED results will come in by the 2nd week in December and apps at other schools were due by 1 January.
She got in ED so it saved us money by her not having to submit the apps to 4-5 other schools at $50-$75 each.
My family weighed the cost of applications against the burden of having to reengage and write college essays and complete applications, which I know we are fortunate to be able to do. We decided to apply to all schools at once just to be done with the process. We made November application month and just grinded through it. Also, it was really cool to get some early acceptances and scholarship offers from schools before I heard from WashU. It gave me some confidence that whatever happened with my ED school I was already in some great schools and could look forward to whatever came next.
I know this is after the fact for this year, but underclassmen and their parents may read it. We didn’t have any ED applications, but we did have one Selective Early Action (non-binding, but otherwise similar to ED), three RD applications to other national elites, four to semi-selective top regional schools, and one local safety school. First time doing this, but I think that was a great mix. We submitted ALL of them the last week of October via CommonApp to make sure we were considered for automatic scholarships. Word of warning for first timers, many have essay questions so don’t start this process October 30th !!! It was nice to get the apps done, get some quick acceptances (non-elites), some quick automatic merit scholarships (non-elites), and then get plugged into other scholarships. Each school is different on merit scholarships; some consider everyone automatically, and others make you apply for each one, with deadlines as early as November and as late as January (in our experience). And most had some essays involved, so it takes time. So if all of the applications are in by October 31, you can have that behind you and concentrate on the scholarships. Some of them have competitions as well; we have traveled to two of them so far. We are in a position now where we are just waiting on the RD elites. This was our first time through this process but I think our attack was pretty good. I’d be interested if people did anything different that they would recommend, as we will be doing this again in 2 years.
Did much the same thing but ended up choosing one ED school which was WashU. It was very uplifting to get acceptances and scholarships from other places while I waited to hear from WashU. Had I not gotten in I’d still have great options and wouldn’t be that bummed.