<p>do they wait and look at all after the deadline or do they look as they come in? as in would i raise my chances of being accepted by even 0.0001 percent if i applied super early? not under early decision however because of financial situationn</p>
<p>Depends on the college. It never <em>hurts</em> to apply as early as possible, though.</p>
<p>At colleges that do rolling admissions, they read your file just about as soon as it’s complete. At these colleges, it’s usually advantageous to apply as early as you can.</p>
<p>At colleges that don’t do rolling admissions, they usually wait to read your file until after the application deadline has passed. In these cases, there’s no admissions advantage in applying early–but there is still the benefit of having it done, and knowing you won’t have to sweat it out in the last few hours trying to beat the deadline.</p>
<p>And there’s also the negative of rushing and sending in an incomplete product.</p>
<p>T26, you’ve always seemed a little more tolerant of coming right down to the wire than I am.</p>
<p>Certainly, I can’t recommend rushing and submitting an inferior application either. But let’s talk about the real world. How many of those folks who come on CC in December to ask, “Does ‘January 1’ mean I have to submit my application by 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, or do I have until 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 1?” are, in fact, not slapping something together at the last minute?</p>
<p>I still think the optimal time to submit an application is 1-2 weeks before the deadline. That’s plenty of time to proofread and polish and make sure your awards and honors are up to date and all that, but it also leaves a little cushion if something goes wrong, and it won’t leave you in a panic because the volume of traffic crashed the college’s server at 11:58. And in addition to all that, I did once hear a former student of mine, who was wotking as an admissions officer at her Top 30 alma mater, tell an information session, “Actually, I do always look to see when an application was submitted.”</p>
<p>^^ LOL true dat! When my kid’s apps will be due in a few years, I’ll be keeping an eye to make sure it’s not post Dec 25th too!</p>
<p>The no. of “omigod, I missed the deadline by 15 seconds” posts that come here annually is sad/frustrating/comical.</p>
<p>Yes, all of those things!</p>
<p>And then 3 or 4 days later come the, “OMG, there’s a typo in my application!” posts. Or my favorite subset of those, “OMG, I left the word [name of college] in my ‘Why [name of other college]?’ essay!” That same former student, who lived and worked in DC, used to tell applicants, “Be sure you proofread. Every year I read an application from a student who tells me in how eager he is to go to college in Boston. And every year I think, ‘Good luck with that, then!’”</p>
<p>Sorry, folks, it is plain wrong to think that the adcoms START reading apps only after the application deadline. What do you think they do with their lives all Fall? Basically, most travel to college fairs, in September and early October, but after that, they sit on their butts and start reading. If you submit an application early, it will be read early. And, the advantage to that is that your essay about your experience on a mission trip in Guatemala building grass huts will be the first he/she will read, and not the 1,000th, by which point it all blurs. Moral: apply early.</p>
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<p>Well, yes, but they’re reading the ED or EA applications. And then going to committee about them.</p>
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<p>Placido, I’m kind of surprised by your apparent certainty. It might be read early at some places, I guess, if the college finishes its work with early applicants, but I don’t know how you can say with certainty that it will be. I can say with certainty that there are universities that don’t touch RD applications until after the application deadline has passed.</p>
<p>As for whether it’s best to be the first or the thousandth one read, I’m not sure that’s clear-cut, either. It can be easy to forget the first one after you’ve read 999 more, and it’s not hard at all to fixate on some aspect of a later application that’s better than some previous one, and to conclude therefore that the whole application must be superior.</p>
<p>Do you know something that I don’t know?</p>
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<p>I know what I have been told by countless admissions officers whom I have met in fairs, online, in chats, and in person. An early application is better. If an adcom has 10 hours in a day to read applications and, in early October, she has 40 to read (just picking a number), each gets 15 minutes; by January, when she has 100 to read . . . well, you do the math. That’s the point. The applicant simply gets, perhaps, an extra minute or two in the early going than in the later going – humans simply cannot expand the hours in a day to read more apps when more apps appear; they give less time to each app. Logical, no?</p>
<p>I am with placido on this one. We spoke with our regional adcom from Vandy and she specifically encouraged us to get our app in early (November if possible) so that there would be more time to read it.</p>
<p>At many schools, stats are the biggest factor in determining who get’s in and who doesn’t, meaning adcoms can go through applications pretty fast just by weeding out the ones with substandard GPA and test scores and taking the ones with solid stats, well above the average (hooked applicants may have different standards or evaluated differently). That alone probably consists of at least a good chunk of the applicant pool, leaving only the ones in the middle that require a more in-depth look.</p>
<p>At the more selective schools, applications are usually pre-screened or read by first readers, meaning if the academic stats aren’t high enough and there’s nothing substantial to make a case, the applicant will be denied. </p>
<p>You really don’t think adcoms spend the same amount of time going through every application do you? Or that they even go through every application that is submitted?</p>
<p>While I concur that the amount of time spent on each application will vary, I would be appalled if a school accepted an application fee from a student and then failed to read their entire application while adhering to their published standards. At most selective schools, this means that every application is read completely at least twice.</p>
<p>Perhaps I am idealistic, but this gets to the integrity of the process. Even if an applicant is clearly unqualified (and easily identified as such), they deserve to be treated according to published standards.</p>
<p>The other area where applying early can matter at some schools is getting an interview spot.</p>
<p>Why do they deserve to be treated accordingly? If the admission officer knows the applicant has no chance in getting in with his/her stats (if there is no hook or some outstanding other portion to the app), then what’s the point in continuing in reading it? The student should know beforehand, having done his/her research and talked to his/her guidance counselor, if a school is realistic and worth sending in the $60 or so application fee.</p>
<p>yeah i was thinking that they probly spend the earlier time just going through specifically early action/decision apps and don’t look at any regular til deadline which is annoying… and idk wut they do but i think they should read every app entirely and equally, it’s supposed to be holistic, at least at many schools, and based on the applicant as a whole not just any one parttt</p>