When to click submit on applications?

Our K-8 school gave the students a firm deadline to complete all essays and five days of no homework (and 3 days off due to holidays) in order to do it. My son (and I) are pretty much done. I see no advantage in sending them in right at this second as maybe something could come up later worth noting. When would you suggest submitting them? After Thanksgiving? Early December? My understanding is that interview season ends and then the apps are reviewed (when recommendations are also in).

Have grades come in yet for the first marking period? How about the SSAT score? If not, perhaps wait until at least you know the grades/score?

Only one of AppleKid’s made it in before January. All the others went in pretty much at the deadline. I don’t recommend that if it can be avoided! X_X

I would submit them now. If anything comes up which is worth noting, you can send in an update. Get them in, and out of your (and your son’s) minds.

There’s no reason to send them in this early. They won’t review them until after the deadline. It’s amazing that you are done this early, but why not let them sit and see if you want to revise some answers in a month?

The answer in my household would be that we’re quite capable of forgetting to submit completed applications.

If your school gives you so much time to get them done in October, that’s a good reason to submit them. Your part of the application is only one section. It sometimes takes time for the submitted applications to show up on the internet portals, at least it did for our kids.

@sadieshadow I hope that you and your family are doing something special to celebrate being done with the applications! Well done!! ^:)^ Congratulations and best wishes.

@Periwinkle Thanks for pointing out something which the members of AppleFamily are often guilty of doing (or not doing to be more precise); I had a good laugh.

Thanks for all the replies. . .We may keep them at least until he has done the interviews for the schools that ask why you think such and such would be a good fit for you? I think our school is a bit unusual (and perhaps nuts) to basically put such fear in the kids regarding this manufactured deadline. They have a weekly “decisions” seminar and the teacher would ask for a show of hands regarding how many essays were done, etc. The rationale is to allow them at this point to focus on their academics through the end of the trimester which is December 3. It did make my job easier. He also has the SSAT this weekend so the timing of this homework holiday was really perfect. At the end of the day, the google doc of all his responses to 7 schools is about 15 pages double spaced so yes we will be celebrating this weekend. His request was permission to buy a video game. That seemed reasonable to me! Thanks all for such nice comments and willingness to share your experiences.

FWIW, DD submitted three application early, in October, prior to her interviews and tours. She regretted all three of them. In one of the cases, she strongly disliked the school and wouldn’t had submitted the application had she waited until after the visit (she wouldn’t have attended if admitted). In the other two cases, the visit changed her mind about what she wanted to write about. She redid her essays, and we made arrangements with both schools to submit a second essay directly to the school via the AO, to be used in place of the first essay. It was a hassle.

I’m impressed. Fortunately my son has a ski trip planned for the Jan 15 weekend, when his applications are due, so they will have to be done before the deadline, but undoubtedly not by much! (I am dreading Christmas break.) However, if he were to find it within himself to write essays now, I would still suggest he hold them for a while, in case he had further thoughts or experiences to include. He will also have some extracurricular items that won’t come up till later in the process but that he’ll want to include.