When to apply for US colleges?

<p>I am an international student wishing to know when to apply for US colleges. Since I have the high dreams of pursuing an undergraduate studies in the United States, I have a tangling confusion on when to apply for the colleges.
Say, if I wanted to be admitted to the earliest possible date in 2012; when should I be applying? Is it early 2012, or late 2011, or early 2011, since in my region, I would only be applying, in the aforementioned case, in late 2011. I know the application dates would vary among institutions, I just needed the rough view on when to apply.
For those of you kind enough, can you please include the range of dates for applications or the months.
Thanks in advance, and really sorry for my ignorance.</p>

<p>EDIT : Since I'm an international student, I might be posting this in the wrong section, sorry! But hopefully you guys in this section can help me with this too.</p>

<p>You would be applying for the freshman class that begins in Aug (or Sep at some) 2012. You can start applying at most colleges about September 2011 (common application used by many colleges even becomes available in August 2011) and must apply at most by no later than early January 2012. Some even have earlier deadlines, such as the University of California campuses which require all apps to be in by Nov 30, 2011. If you want to apply early action or early decision to any colleges, most of those require the apps by Nov 1, 2011 and a few such as Georgia Tech by October 1.</p>

<p>Each college on its website publishes the deadline dates for applying. Since the actual dates vary it is important that you determine for yourself the deadline date for each college to which you want to apply because missing the deadline usually means you will not be admitted.</p>

<p>You should start by reading through everything (and I do indeed mean everything) at [EducationUSA</a> | Study Abroad, Student Visa, University Fairs, College Applications and Study in the U.S. / America](<a href=“http://www.educationusa.info/]EducationUSA”>http://www.educationusa.info/) Then you should make an appointment with the counselors at the advising center closest to where you live. They are expert at helping students from your country find good places to study in the US, and they can tell you what you need to know in order to get your applications done on time.</p>