University of Chicago |
Procrastinators alert! You know those application deadlines we’ve
seemed so strict about? The deadlines most
students worked hard to meet?
Congratulations!
A number of colleges have changed their minds and
are offering applicants a little extra time to complete essays and submit applications
for ‘regular decision’ admission to the Class of 2019.
In other words, students who couldn’t quite get
paperwork together by deadline are being rewarded with a few more days to
complete their applications and submit.
In an email forwarded to prospective applicants on
December 30, the University of Pennsylvania
advised
that the admissions office would be keeping “The Common Application open
through January 5th for students interested in applying Regular
Decision.” But as of this writing the
extension hadn’t been communicated to the Common
Application, and you could hear sounds of frustration on College
Confidential from students fearing their applications would not go through after January 1.
Dartmouth
gave a little more advance notice and wrote students and some counselors on
December 23 that the Admissions office would be closed from December 24 to
January 4, but students having “trouble submitting their applications by the
January 1 deadline” or those needing a few extra days for “holiday endeavors” would
be given until January 6 to submit.
The University
of Chicago was even more gracious: “In
honor of the New Year, UChicago has extended the Regular Decision deadline to
January 5th. The holidays are
a time to enjoy the company of friends and family, maybe sleep in, and eat
cookie after delicious cookie. We hope
you enjoy yourself this holiday season, and take these extra days to relax a
bit.”
Relax? With
the notorious University of Chicago essays hanging over your head? Doubtful.
Students on the Olin College of Engineering mailing list received an email advising them that the January 1 deadline was extended to January 4. But as of this writing neither the website nor the Common Application reflected the change, and efforts to reach the admissions office were unsuccessful because it's closed for the holidays.
One Midwestern school got so excited about joining
the party that the “Dean of Admission extended the application deadline to
January 15….” The problem is that the
posted application deadline on both the school website and the Common Application is
March 1.
And Loyola
Marymount University let students know that the essay prompts marked “optional”
on the Common Application weren’t really optional, but that they were allowing
until February 1, after the January 15 regular decision deadline, for the
essays to be submitted separately from the Common App. Complicated?
A little.
So why would all these colleges be shifting around
deadlines? One theory might be that they’re
trolling for additional applications because they fell a little short from
previous years or they want to look more selective by having more to
reject.
But the problem is that there’s no one around to
answer questions—most admissions offices have been closed since before
Christmas. If a college sends an email
to prospective students but fails to make adjustments to either the website or
the Common Application, applicants rightfully want to know that the application
they send will get through the system.
So here’s a little insider information: the published deadline provided on an
application website is often different from the hard cut-off date after which
no further applications will be accepted by a college or university. This is to
help colleges and students navigate special circumstances. The Common
Application, for one, is capable of accepting applications long after the date
that appears on the grid or on a student’s dashboard.
That doesn’t mean you should try submitting late
just to see if it works. That's a really bad plan. But if a
college notifies you that a deadline has been extended, you can count on the
application software to accept your application even if the published date hasn’t
been changed. It just would be nice if
all the messages were the same.
And keep in mind that only students who have somehow
gotten onto a college’s radar will get notification of deadline extensions. Students on mailing lists or those who listed schools as “My Colleges”
on the Common Application were among those rewarded with invitations to submit after deadline.
Is there a lesson here? Be sure to “demonstrate interest" to all
the colleges to which you think you may apply by getting on mailing
lists, entering colleges on the Common Application, or opening an application “account”
for colleges not using the Common App.
Don’t assume that because you’re
receiving mail from a college that you are on the “A-list” of applicants—they
could have purchased your name from the College Board.
Instead, make sure you reach out to the college by signing up to receive
information and then be sure to open email.
And if you still have questions
about a deadline, contact the college directly—except not around the
holidays. Even on the single busiest
application day of the year, most institutions are closed.