Meeting Your College Admissions Deadlines 2022 – 2023
If you’re applying for college admission for fall of 2023, it’s time to create and commit to a schedule. Yes, already. Application deadlines are not flexible! Right now they feel very far away—but ignore them even briefly, and you will find them right around the corner. Now is the time to get ahead on your applications to stay ahead of your deadlines.
Know Your Timeline
The three most common deadlines are November 1 and November 15 for Early Decision/Early Action, and January 1 for Regular Decision—but all colleges (even within the Common App) can determine their own application deadlines, so it’s wise to double-check all of your dates and make yourself a list. The Universities of California are alone in their November 30 deadline. If you’re unsure for whatever reason, err on the early side. Better to be done for November 1 and then discover the application was due the 15th … than the other way around.
Some schools accept rolling admissions as late as February, but there’s really no reason to make your work stretch out that long, unless you want more of your senior grades to be taken into consideration with your application.
Get Organized
Now is the time to choose how you will keep track of these dates. Will you use a paper calendar or planner (or both), and if so, where will you keep it and how will you update it? Or will you try a digital solution like Trello boards, a dedicated Google calendar, or both? I’m a huge fan of digital organization because it’s portable, easily updated, and easy to share for accountability. Download the free organizing app Trello and copy my board templates to get your timeline started!
Get a Head Start
The Common App website might not be great beach reading, but it’s full of useful information. This summer I learned that your Common App profile “rolls over” at their August 1 “refresh.” That means you don’t have to wait to create a Common App account and start working your way through the tedious aspects, like personal information and Activities List. The Common App “tab responses” and “My Colleges” list will stay as you have completed them, even as other aspects of the application might change (like supplemental essay questions, for example). Do NOT start your essays in the App before August 1 because it will delete anything you have written in those sections. Invitations to send recommendations will also be deleted, so hold off on those until you return to school.
Special Notes for Music Students
Prospective music majors must both apply and audition, so they have more deadlines to track. If you are planning to apply to music school in the fall, you should ideally already be aware of the audition requirements for the schools where you plan to apply.
“Plan to have all of your audition repertoire chosen by the end of May,” says Trisha Craig, college counselor at Music Builds Lives. “That will give you a good amount of time to prepare for live auditions beginning in mid-January. And be sure to double- and triple-check the requirements for each school. Some pieces will overlap, but it is important to pay attention to school-specific expectations for your instrument.”
The number and type of pieces varies not only by school, but by instrument. You should expect to learn five to six pieces of music per school, with some requiring a specific piece, others a particular kind of piece (such as an etude), others a particular time period or style (such as Baroque). Luckily, as with supplemental essays, some of those pieces may overlap.
Craig recommends that music students spend their summer working extensively on their audition pieces, including taking extra lessons with your private instructor. (Some students take two lessons each week.)
A very important, often-overlooked music deadline is the recording. About half of schools require a preliminary recording to be submitted in the fall (as early as October) in order to be invited to a live audition. This varies by school and by instrument, so look carefully at the website for each school where you intend to apply. Not only does that fall deadline come quickly, but recordings are a completely different repertoire from the one you need to learn for the live audition!
No-Stress Applications
The simplest way to no-stress applications (or at least less-stress!) is starting (and finishing!) well ahead of your deadline. Common Application deadlines are at 11:59 p.m. in your local time on the posted deadline date. But leaving your submission to that time is inviting disaster, whether your computer breaks, your internet goes down, or the application system is overwhelmed. Plan to submit at least first thing in the morning on that day, if not a day to a week ahead of time.
Make your plan today and start working it now. Enjoy your senior fall instead of dreading it!
(Photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash.)
