College application season can be extremely stressful for seniors. The complex and tedious application requirements determine the next four-plus years of their lives. With there being almost 5,000 higher education institutions in the U.S., picking the right school for you can be difficult.
Most universities supply a variation of application types such as Early Decision, Early Action, Regular Decision and Rolling Admission. In an Early Decision application, you sign a binding contract that ensures if the school accepts you, you must attend that school. Early Action is available for most public schools, where the deadline to submit applications is earlier in the year and in return you get an acceptance letter earlier than another application type. Regular Decision has a later deadline and correspondingly you hear back later – in the middle of senior year. Lastly, in a Rolling application, you can apply at any time, and hear back in four to six weeks.
Seniors here generally strive to apply by the Early Action deadline to increase their chances of getting accepted. Senior Tatiana Pacheco applied to seven universities by the Early Action deadline. “I wanted to apply to my top school Early Action so I would have the best chance at getting accepted. I wanted to hear back as soon as possible. It was definitely stressful getting all my applications in by the deadline but I know it will all be worth it when I begin to hear back from the schools,” Pacheco said.
In addition to seniors applying Early Action to schools, it is comforting to have a safety school to apply to that decides admissions on a rolling basis, so you can hear back as soon as possible. “A popular school that a lot of my friends and I applied to is the University of Pittsburgh which has a rolling admissions process. I heard back four weeks after I applied to the school. I’m glad I was able to hear back from them so I know I was accepted to a university,” senior Aamruth Adarsh said.
Students often overlook the opportunity to study internationally. There are schools all over the world, for example, Oxford University in Oxford, England. “I prefer to go to school in Germany over school in the United States. My parents studied internationally and I’m ready to see something new. I only applied to three schools in the United States,” Adarsh said.
One of the most stressful times of a senior’s life is awaiting their Early Decision acceptance email. Applying Early Decision to school is a binding contract, agreeing that if you are accepted to the school you will go there regardless of financial aid or other acceptances. A student applying for Early Decision has to be confident that school is their top choice. Some universities offer both an Early Decision 1 and an Early Decision 2. They mean the same thing, they just have different deadlines and release dates.
Seniors this year may have had a college set in mind and so applied Early Decision there. Senior Turner Purvis applied Early Decision to the University of Pennsylvania. “I really want to go to the University of Pennsylvania because they have great academic programs and sports teams. It has everything I would want in a college and I would be tremendously grateful to attend the school. In addition to applying Early Decision to the University of Pennsylvania, I also applied to seven other schools just in case,” Purvis said.
