Early Decision Deadline

The Early Decision deadline is fast approaching. Read over your essays in this final week (photo credit: Bryan Y.W. Shin).

The Early Decision deadline is fast approaching. So what should you be doing now? What you shouldn’t be doing is starting your essays. If you are, you probably shouldn’t be applying early. Maybe there’s a reason you waited so long to write your essays. Maybe someone inside your head was trying to tell you that fully committing to one school isn’t in your best interest right now. Early Decision, after all, is a binding commitment. It’s like marriage. Lots of brides and grooms get the jitters. Maybe you have the Early Decision jitters. If that’s the case, don’t apply Early Decision!

But if you know for sure that there’s a specific college you want to go to above all other colleges and that college has an Early Decision policy, you should definitely apply. Use your Early Card. Improve your odds of admission by showing the college that you love them above all other colleges. And then get in so you can not have to stress about college admissions for the rest of your senior year (though you should absolutely maintain your grades and stay out of behavioral trouble).

And if you’re all set with your application to your Early Decision college, use this week to look it over. Maybe you haven’t read your essays over in a few weeks. On this final read, you might well catch mistakes or see things you don’t want to include since you’ve had some time away from the material. Read over every aspect of the application from the one-line supplemental short take statements on the Yale application to the Common App. personal statement. Everything counts and the stakes are high.

Check out this post on Early Action and Early Decision.