College application deadlines approach

By Christine Kim,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

So far, Davis High seniors are on many different stages of their college application process.

Ethan Tran entered his senior year with his college application essays already prepared over the summer.

“I’ve input all my information [on The Common Application], but still need to revise my essays,” he said.

Senior Will Alpers is confident he is 60 percent done with his early action application process.

“I got my letters of recommendation figured out a few weeks ago. I also already did the Common App prompt since we had to do that for English class […] that really helped me out,” Alpers said.

Alpers is applying early action to Stanford University on Nov. 1, UC’s on Nov. 30, and other private schools in January. He believes the scattered due dates help students have enough time to apply to all the schools they want.

“It’s pretty nice because I can split up the work instead of doing it all at once,” Alpers said.

General online college planning sources, such as College Board suggest following a guideline to simplify the college application process.

October:
By October, most seniors should have a brief idea of what colleges they want to apply to. Seniors should start narrowing down their list of colleges and make a calendar with all upcoming deadlines and testing dates.

Students should make sure they are registered for any SAT, ACT or SAT Subject Tests that are required to apply to their schools.

The FAFSA portal opened on October first, along with the CSS/Financial Aid Profile, which students should complete ideally by the end of the month.

Counselors recommend for students interested in applying to private colleges to set up an appointment in the month of October more sooner than later. After the appointment, students should request to send a fall transcript to colleges and ask teachers and counselors for letters of recommendation.

Depending on the student’s school of interest, they should start preparing their college application as the first Early Decision I and Early Action applications are due on Nov. 1.

November
Students should make sure that the correct standardized test scores are sent to colleges. The second common early action deadline is Nov. 15. Colleges recommend that students should complete at least one college application by Thanksgiving.

December
By December, students should verify that letters of recommendation were sent to colleges.

Some colleges’ early decision and early action results are revealed in late December. Students should continue completing college applications for Early Decision II and Regular Decision.

January
Seniors should thank teachers and counselors who wrote letters of recommendation and continue submitting the last of their college applications.