Does Early Bird Strategy Work When Applying to Colleges?
Many seniors believe or are led to believe that getting their college application in first presents significant advantages, as this allows colleges to have more time to review their application.
In reality, colleges may not begin to review any applications until after the deadlines and likely not in the order in which they were received:
Between college fairs, high school visits and campus tours, Fall is a busy season for college admissions officers. They themselves are busy in recruiting best talent for their campuses. You see them around.
Colleges want to see the entire pool of applicants first before deciding. They want to know what kind of students are applying--their academic profile, majors, interests, geographical locations, etc. This is also why a deferred decision from ED or EA is not as dire as it may feel. All the deferred applicants then get reviewed along with the regular application pool.
If anything, colleges really do try to ensure fair and equal evaluation process for all applicants, thereby ensuring that no student, no matter how early they applied, gets an additional advantage. The only exception to this are colleges with Rolling Admissions policy like University of Pittsburgh.
With this admission policy, colleges review applications as they come in. You also hear back from them relatively quickly, within few weeks.
However, even here rather than hastily completing applications, students should take time completing their college essays and ensure that the application(s) are complete with all the information that a college may want to have.
It is the strong application that offers the greatest chance of acceptance and not how early you got it in!
