There will be a few things you need to be extremely cautious with. DEADLINES. Try not to miss a single one of them. You might get away a few times if you use excuses like international mail is not trustworthy, and my application package got lost, or my teachers forgot to post it. However, that won’t always work. There were a lot of people, who had similar excuses like that. By now, I think colleges know what’s the truth. But, they might not take it seriously unless they have to.
The usual dates that one should be familiar with are – November 1/15, January 1/15, and February 1/15. These dates are related to the way you will be applying to the college. Let’s talk about them.
Early Decision (ED) - You get to apply to only one college. You need to sign a contract form declaring that you will attend that college/university in case you get admitted. I don’t know what consequences you might face if you don’t go there even if you get in. Sometimes people do that, but it’s because the college doesn’t provide sufficient financial aid as requested by the applicant in the financial aid form.
Normally, a lot of Nepalese choose their reach schools for Early Decision. The underlying thought is – If you apply to a school that’s not the best, but a match for you, you regret later even if you get in. You never have a chance to know if you could have gotten into the best college you thought of. Seems good enough. But if you are capable of satisfied with what you get, don’t apply to high reach schools.
Some also choose their match schools. They want to get into a school as early as possible and remain tension free for the rest of their time. It’s a long time – December/January to April. People wanting not to apply to lots of colleges, and have lots of time to enjoy do this.
No one applies to a safety school in ED. One has to be insane.
These days, a lot of schools are opting out of ED. They no longer offer ED. Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and most of the ivies are no longer accepting EDs. That’s because of their consideration for students from middle class and lower class families – they say.
