What is the right time to apply to college? Are there advantages and disadvantages to different times?
As students end their junior year of high school and begin to look around the corner to their senior year, the topic foremost on their minds tends to be college. Within that, students and parents are undergoing the process of creating and editing a college list. Over the course of college visits, reading brochures, talking to friends, college counselors, and family, students are forming an idea of the kind of school they want to attend. Then comes the decision of applying to college early or not.
There are two kinds of early decision options open to applicants in the college process. One is early decision, which requires a student to submit his or her application around November 1st of his or her senior year. The student will then usually be notified by December15th whether the college accepted, rejected or deferred them to regular decision. There are a couple of big advantages to early decision. The first is that the acceptance rate tends to be higher in this round than in the regular decision round.
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How can I keep track of everything I need to do to navigate the college admissions process?
Applying to college is a lot of work. It can easily seem overwhelming. To stay on top of it the application process, you’re going to want to make a checklist of everything you have to do, and a calendar of when each thing is going to get done. At CATES we also suggest using spreadsheets as a great tool to organize the college admissions process.
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How should I approach the common application?What are my best options?
Years ago, applying to five or six different schools often meant completing five or six different sets of essays. In order to make this process more manageable, admissions officers from several different colleges and universities got together and created the common application, a standardized college application that’s now accepted by over four hundred different schools.
So what’s on the common application (or “common app,” as it’s sometimes called)? You’ll be asked questions about what classes you’ve taken (including AP and honors classes), what jobs you’ve had, and what extracurricular activities you’ve participated in. You’ll also have to fill out several questions about your family background
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