Those Looming College Application Deadlines

If your child applied for admission to a college or university under an Early Action or Early Decision program, notification letters will arrive by mid-December. My congratulations go out to those who have received letters of acceptance. For those who have received deferral or rejection letters, as well as for all of those who have simply procrastinated, I have some advice to offer. My insights are derived from having worked for six years as an admissions officer at a highly selective university and then for five years as a teacher at an elite independent school where I often fielded questions and advised students and families trying to successfully navigate the college admissions process.

First of all, for those who applied early and were not admitted, it would not be wise to attempt to read too much into a deferral or rejection letter. Admissions decisions are not so much a comment on your child's individual qualifications as they are on the increasingly competitive and unpredictable nature of admissions in general--and the early programs in particular. Bear in mind that the number of applicants choosing the early path to admission continues to grow despite both the current economic downturn and the ongoing criticism of early admissions programs. The New York Times recently reported that this fall a number of schools saw increases between 15% and 50% in their early applicant pools. Clearly, these schools found themselves in a position in which they had to defer or reject a significant number of highly qualified applicants.

Focus on the task at hand. Now is the time for your child to quickly organize and complete applications to the other schools on his or her list, most of which will have January 1^st submission deadlines. Most likely, your child has a reasonably well-considered list of 7 or 8 schools that he or she has thoughtfully compiled in recent months. Make sure that your child has a list or calendar that schedules time to complete and submit all the components of the various applications under each school's regular deadlines. Point out to your child that it would be wise to plan to complete and submit all online applications several days before the actual deadline, say by December 28^th, so as to avoid the technical problems that invariably crop up as a result of high traffic at application websites on deadline dates. Most high school seniors can be fairly easily persuaded that it would be smart to take the necessary measures to assure that they are not spending New Year's Eve at a computer futilely attempting to resolve technical problems they encounter when pressing the send button.

Fortunately, your child probably plans to submit applications electronically and, having submitted the early application electronically, understands how to navigate application websites. There is a good chance that your child will be filing a Common Application to more than one school. Indeed, with the ever-expanding consortium of schools that have signed on to the Common Application--346 colleges and universities for the 2008/09 admissions cycle--sending off multiple applications has been further streamlined for the more than 1.5 million students who will file Common Applications this admissions season. However, if your child is submitting a Common Application, be certain that he or she is aware whether any school-specific supplemental forms are required.

Finally, we cannot emphasize enough that your child should use these final weeks before submitting applications to review and revise his or her application essays. Your child should revise not just mechanical flaws such as spelling and grammatical errors but also the topic and tone of the essays. Encourage your child to imagine how the essay will fit into the overall profile that the application presents to admissions committees-the essay is not read apart from the rest of the file but as an integral part of it. The essay presents an excellent opportunity for your child to present him or herself directly to admissions committees.