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Students planning paths to college
By Paige Barnes (Class of '11)
To most students it seems like application and decision deadlines are distant. Most seniors believe that they don’t need to worry about applications until the month of the deadlines, but what they don’t know is that early action and early decision are where many colleges get over 50% of their students. If a student has a definite first choice school, then he or she should absolutely apply early decision.
There is a slight difference between early action and early decision. One serious downside to applying early decision, however, is that many colleges force students to “lock in” their decision. This means that if students apply early decision and are accepted they are required to withdraw applications to all other universities. This can cause problems when it comes to scholarships and financial aid because while you are locked into one college another may be willing to offer higher financial aid or more scholarships the applicant would be forced to attend the university they applied to early decision. Early action applicants apply early, receive and admission decision early in the admission cycle (usually in January or February, do not have to commit, may apply to other colleges, must give the college a decision no later than the May 1st national response date, according to collegeboard.com.
Early admissions programs can be very advantageous to college applicants, depending on their profile and situation. Keep in mind though that you're not just being asked to indicate a school preference; you're being asked to forego all other options and to commit yourself to spending four years (and tens of thousands of dollars) at a particular institution. That's a big decision for anyone to make and it should only be undertaken with the best possible information and advice, and without undue deadline pressure, as seen on collegetoolkit.com.
Though early action and early decision applicants will know sooner than other applicants whether or not they were accepted, most colleges do not notify ED/EA applicants of admission until December 15. Because of the usual deadlines for college applications, this means that if a student is rejected by her early-decision college, she will have only two weeks to send in other applications. Collegeboard.com also encourages those students who are applying early to prepare other applications as they wait to hear about admission.
How does this apply to underclassmen? This means that it’s advantageous to start SAT and ACT testing as soon as possible especially if students are considering the SAT Subject tests. The best advice for juniors and sophomores is to take PSATs, SATs and ACTs as soon as possible. There are many test dates in October and November for SATs, ACTs and diagnostic testing.
Juniors who haven’t taken the PSATs should also strongly consider doing that for the benefit of scholarships and practice. The SAT does take students highest scores in each section but after the third test taken the scores are averaged which can bring students scores down so the PSAT is extremely helpful.
Whatever students decide to do must depend on their individual goals and decisions though students should keep in mind grades are always the first criteria colleges look at.
