Application options — an alphabet soup that matters

Early decision, early action, rolling admissions, priority admissions, early notification – the beat goes on. Although you won’t be filling out applications until the late summer/early fall of your senior year, how you will apply is a topic worthy of consideration during your junior year, as it certainly has a direct influence on the test schedule/campus visitation schedule you are in the process of developing as you read this article.

I invite you to enter the fast-forward college-application time machine!

By the end of summer 2012 you, hopefully, will have done all that you have been asked to do as you enter the “home stretch” in the college application process. You’ve taken the ACT or SAT and, if required, the Subject Tests that the most competitive colleges insist you take. You may have decided to take one more crack at the standardized tests and have filed the appropriate application with the American College Testing Service or the College Board.

Your teacher recommendations are in the hands of those you asked to write them during the spring of junior year. You’ve completed the basic biographical, academic and co-curricular data that is part of every application. Many of the schools you are applying to accept the Common Application, and that’s made your job that much easier.

You’ve requested the transcript from you high school guidance office. You have written essays that satisfy the admissions requirements of the six to eight schools you’ve decided to apply to and are pleased that they reflect what you want them to. My compliments on a job well done.

With apologies to “Jaws,” just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, there is one more decision you need to consider: namely, “How will I apply.” I am not talking about electronic or “online” applications versus the traditional paper application sent by snail mail — more and more schools ask that you apply electronically — but the category you want your application considered under. You have lots of options, and the one you choose can play a significant role in your fate in the hands of an admissions officer or committee.

Early decision

Early decision is the first of several options and has distinct advantages and disadvantages for the candidate. It accelerates the application time table. Generally, all of what constitutes the application and supporting material needs to be to the college by Nov. 1, and you can expect to get your admissions answer, accepted, deferred or denied, by mid-December.

If accepted, you are committed to attending and must withdraw all your other applications. The pressure is off and you can, within limits, relax and enjoy the rest of your senior year. The option also limits the information on financial aid packages that you might have gotten from other schools and, if money is an issue as it is for many applying to college, that may be a good reason not to use this option.

If the school you are applying to is your absolute first choice and you present a strong candidacy, early decision may increase your chances of admission. From the college’s perspective, they get you, guaranteed, and do not run the risk of losing you to a competing institution of higher learning.

Early action

Early action is a far less restrictive option for the student, but not for the university. There are a variety of deadlines imposed by individual universities for receiving the completed application, and some actually have two early-action deadlines, just as some have two early-decision options – one in November and another at the end of January.

A student who applies “early action” and is accepted is guaranteed a place in the entering freshman class but does not have to commit to accepting the offer of admission, generally, until May 1. Simply put; the offer is binding on the university but not on the student.

Priority admission

Priority admission works in a similar fashion. A student applies by a certain date – often later that an early-action deadline – and is notified of his or her status anywhere from six weeks to two months after the application is received. Some schools call their option “early notification.” Again, the offer of admission is binding on the university but not on the student who, again, generally has until May 1 to make their intention known.

Rolling admissions

Rolling admissions – and the rules governing this option vary from university to university – match completed applications to a pre-determined set of admissions criteria set by the university. If you meet the standard, you are admitted but still have until May 1 to accept the offer of admission.

Some schools – the University of Delaware is a prime example – offer none of these options. Aspiring freshmen there must use the regular-decision pathway and deal with a notification date that is usually in mid- to late March

If there is one underlying theme to all these options, it is that you are best served if you complete your applications as soon as possible and submit them to the colleges and universities you are applying to earlier, rather than later.

The sooner a school receives a completed application, the sooner it reviews the application. If a school wants additional information from you, it will let you know that as it completes its review, giving you ample time to supply what is requested. Schools to which you are applying early-decision or early-action may, for example, want your first-quarter senior-year grades. Some schools may ask for an additional essay or a writing sample to make a judgment as to your candidacy.

The range of application options offered by an individual school can be confusing, even though there are generally spelled out on a college or university’s Web site. It is important for a student to review those polices and select the option that best meets his or her needs. If in doubt about an option, call the admissions office and seek clarification.

How you apply can, and does, significantly affect your personal application process, in terms of test schedules, visits and actual application submission, as well as how your application is treated, so think carefully before you select a category.

Lawrence Mayer’s career as an educator spans 47 years as a teacher and administrator in high-performing secondary schools in New York Connecticut and New Jersey. For the last three years prior to his retirement in 2008, he served as vice principal of guidance services and director of college counseling at Tenafly High School in northern New Jersey. He is vice president of Winning Education Inc., an educational consulting firm, and is a private college counselor. Mayer lives in Ocean View and may be contacted by e-mail at winninged@aol.com.

This year’s series of columns in the Coastal Point will focus on the critical objectives that present juniors need to accomplish and important challenges that they face as the begin the “formal” college selection-application process.