 Colleges and universities all across the country are releasing the early round admissions decisions over the next two months. Some high school seniors will receive terrific news; others, not the news they were hoping for. And as for the rest? They will have to wait until Spring 2025 to learn their final fate in the college admissions process. For this month’s blogpost, I will discuss the different types of decisions high school seniors that applied to the early round and their families have to make. I will also list the reported drop dates for early round admission decisions for the top colleges in the country. ACCEPTED: EARLY DECISION Congratulations! The college you said “Yes” to has also said “Yes” to you, too! For students that exercised the Early Decision option, being accepted to a college under that policy is binding. Generally, applicants are instructed to withdraw their applications from other schools and formally accept the offer. Applicants also generally apply Early Decision to a college that is his or her top choice. So, if you are one of the lucky students in this application cycle to be accepted Early Decision, your college application season has come to an end; a great gift just in time for the holidays! ACCEPTED: EARLY ACTION Congratulations are also in order for students accepted to college (or colleges) under the Early Action policy. Unlike the Early Decision policy, an acceptance by the college is NOT binding. This gives students a choice: they can either move forward and accept the offer (and subsequently withdraw themselves from consideration by other colleges) or they can wait until the spring and make a decision after learning about Regular Decision application statuses. This news also makes for a good holiday season for students who likely applied to a top choice school during this round. Like Early Decision applicants, they may choose to wrap up their college application process now or continue applying to other schools Regular Decision. DEFERRED A significant portion of early round applicants will receive an admission decision of deferred. This means the admissions committee has postponed making a final decision on the application until the spring. This news can create a lot of mixed emotions, but it can be useful in deciding next steps. At times, a deferral decision in the early round can bring clarity to an applicant: do I wait until the spring or decide to withdraw my application (particularly if there are some early round acceptances in play). Other times, an applicant deferred from an Early Action or Early Decision school (usually a first-choice school) may decide to pursue an Early Decision II option with another program. Early Decision II deadlines are there for this purpose, particularly among the more selective schools. A deferral decision means an applicant is stronger in some respects than an applicant who is denied admission. So, some students--buoyed by this indirect affirmation—will pursue an Early Decision II school that may be their second and third choice in order to increase their odds of being accepted. Remember: choosing an Early Decision option means an applicant is communicating to the school that they will choose them above others if admitted. This may put an applicant in a more favorable light with the admissions committee. Regardless of the choices in front of them, each individual will process what a deferral decision personally means for them. Process whatever emotions and thoughts a deferral decision brings up and move forward in the direction that makes the most sense. DENIAL Also, for a significant number of applicants this cycle, they will receive the unfortunate news that they were not offered a seat at a college to which they applied. As with receiving a notification of a deferral, applicants should be encouraged to process their feelings without judgment, be reminded that a college notification—in either direction—does not define their inherent worthiness, nor does it (in)validate all of the work they put in to be the strongest candidate. There are all kinds of reasons admissions officers select one candidate over another, but it serves no good purpose to focus on the reasons why. Encourage applicants who do not get into the college of their choice at this time to surround themselves with people and things that bring them joy, enjoy the end-of-year and holiday activities, and move forward with the Regular Decision applications as best possible. NOTIFICATION DATES Below are the some of the early round notification dates of the most selective schools in the country. If you know of someone waiting to hear back from one of these schools over the next few weeks, this guide will help you know when might be a good time to reach out to them and see how the process went. Best of luck to all the high school seniors and their families getting notifications from the early round college applications soon!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Aaron A. Shipp, PCCFounder & CEO, The Ivy Edge; Selective College Admissions Expert Archives
January 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
