You may not have to worry about trying to figure out what all the early admission (early action, early decision, etc.) possibilities mean. There is a trend developing and that trend is to drop all of these programs. This fall, for instance, Harvard University has eliminated its early admission program and will have only one application deadline, January 1, for students applying for Fall 2008. Harvard “believing that the college admissions process has become too pressured and too complex” hopes that the single admission format will be fairer as well as simpler.
Early admission with its early application deadlines, does put students into a more competitive application pool and frequently a college will not review an application in their general application pool if it has been turned down in its early action or early decision pool. If your son or daughter is considering an early decision or early action application, be sure to talk with me.
Harvard further urges applicants to use the Common Application and submit by Dec 1 if possible; however; students “will not be penalized in any way” for submitting later in December. The Common Application is used by over 300 colleges and schools, and these schools accept the Common Application without prejudice over their own application. A few schools accept nothing but the Common Application, and this is a second trend that is developing. Using the Common Application makes the application process easier because only one application need be filled out to apply to any number of these colleges or universities.www.commonapp.com has a list of these schools as well as a listing of any supplements that the college requires.