College Applications: The Senior Year Timeline

As of today, August 4th, many students have already returned to school, or will in the next few weeks. If you’re anything like me, back-to-school season still gives you anxiety—even if you haven’t actually gone back to school in years. For rising seniors, this time of year is especially anxiety-inducing.

Yes, senior year is an exciting time with a lot of fun events and milestones on the calendar. But it’s also the year when students have to worry about college applications.

I can’t write your student’s applications for them, but I can lighten the load by telling you what your student should focus on, and when.

Let’s first review the standard components of a college application:

• The Common App core application—delivered to all colleges on the student’s list

  • Includes the Activities section

• Individual college applications—completed on the Common App website

• The personal statement (college essay)

• Supplemental essays (not required by every college)

• Standardized testing scores (not required by every college)

• High school transcript & GPA

• Letters of recommendation (typically from Junior year teachers)

For the remainder of August, your student should focus on four things:

• Setting up their Common App account and completing the My Common App section

• Adding their colleges to Common App

• Writing a complete draft of their personal statement

• Brainstorming and drafting supplemental essays

For help keeping their essays organized, we recommend using the Chapman Education college essay organizer.

Note: if your student did not request recommendations from their teachers in the spring, we recommend that they email those teachers now.

September to October is an extremely busy time for any student needing to make the October 15th Early Action deadline. The schools with this EA deadline include:

• UNC Chapel Hill

• Clemson University

• UT Austin

• UGA

Whether your student needs to meet the October 15th deadline, or has EA deadlines in November, they should spend September/October:

• Completing standardized testing, if necessary

• Polishing their personal statement into something they are proud of

• Polishing supplemental essays

• Completing each college’s application on the Common App

We recommend that students try to have their applications complete two weeks in advance of the deadline. Setting this false deadline will give your student a comfortable buffer of two weeks. If they’re happy with their applications, they can submit early. Alternatively, they can take a short break from thinking about their applications, then return with fresh eyes a couple days later and still have extra time to think about submitting.

If your student is applying Early Decision at one of their schools, they are looking at a November 1st deadline. Since they are approaching this school with an all-in mentality, they should aim to have well-polished essays by mid-October at the latest. Our preference is that the personal statement and supplemental essays for this school are complete and polished in September.

While Early Decision will most likely improve your student’s chances of acceptance (in some cases significantly), they should not bank on acceptance at this school. That means their other applications need proper attention.

Completing the work for the Early Decision school in September and early October will prevent sloppy, hurried work later on, and leave adequate time for the student to prepare their other applications.

If your student is applying regular decision everywhere, then they can take September and October at a slower pace. Nevertheless, we recommend that they get as much application work done in early fall as possible.

It’s important to remember that your student will still be responsible for their classwork and grades while applying to colleges. Since courses tend to ramp up in difficulty as the year goes on, it’s in your student’s best interests to complete application work in the fall—before their classwork piles up.

If your student applied all Early Action/Early Decision, then come December 1st, their hard work is done. A handful of colleges, such as Auburn University, have final Early Action deadlines in December, but these colleges number few.

Once application work is done, your student has to hurry up and wait. For some students, this part—the waiting—feels more harrowing than the application work itself. They shouldn’t expect to receive decisions until mid-December at the earliest.

For those students applying regular decision, November through January is crunch time—especially if they didn’t get the majority of their application work done in the summer and fall.

January 1st and 15th are the most common regular decision deadlines. If you adhere to our two-weeks-early rule, then your student’s applications should be done (ideally polished) by mid- or late- December.

Unless your student applies through Rolling Decision—in which case their decision will come back in a few weeks post-application—they may be in for a long wait. Regular Decision letters typically come in late-March, with the vast majority of schools setting April 1st as the absolute deadline.

Once your student’s letters start rolling in, they transition out of Waiting Mode and into Decision Mode—unless, of course, they are accepted into their Early Decision school.

Your student has until May 1st to accept an offer and place their deposit, meaning some students have as little as one month to make their decision.

Deciding isn’t always easy. In fact, many students agonize over this decision, especially when the schools they must decide between have very similar advantages. In general, these are the factors we suggest families prioritize when making this decision:

• Academic fit—which school would better serve the student’s intellectual and academic goals?

• Finances—which school is offering the best aid package?

• Cultural and social fit—which school feels more like home to the student?

And remember, you can always visit these schools again on Accepted Student Days. Many students delay their decisions until they have attended the Accepted Student Days for the schools they’re stuck between.

If your student is considering deferring or enrolling in a gap year program (read about the difference in this article by Dickinson College), they will need to submit an official deferral or gap year request to their chosen college by a date determined by the college.

Your student will need to confirm this date with their college once they have submitted their enrollment deposit.

At most schools, the deadline to request a gap year or deferral falls between May and July.

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