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Understanding Deadlines

Course video 36 of 79

It is time to use what you learned about yourself to start the college search and find the schools where you will apply. With 4,000+ colleges and universities in the U.S., picking the right schools for you takes time and strategy. This module will focus on three areas: (1) conducting your research, (2) building your school list, and (3) creating your college application plan. To accomplish these goals you will learn everything from application deadlines to where you can research schools to what the information means and how to use that information to better ensure your success.

“It depends.” That is what you’ll hear when asking about the U.S. university admission process. With over 4,000 universities in the United States and no standard application system, the U.S. admission process can be confusing for everyone, but especially for students applying from other countries. This course will help international students (non-U.S. citizens) and non-native English speakers navigate the U.S. university admission process by offering practical information about the documents and pieces that make up a U.S. university application. More importantly, admission officers will discuss how they use those pieces to decide who is accepted and who is denied, so that you can understand the process beyond the pieces. By the end of this course, you will understand application basics that include researching schools, creating a school list, and establishing an application plan. This course will not answer all of your application questions, but it will teach you to ask the right questions of yourself and the universities. Ultimately, you will have all the information you need to start your process the right way, putting you on the path to acceptance. * Please note, while the English Language Programs are part of the University of Pennsylvania, this is not a course about applying to Penn. Furthermore, this course is intended for international students educated in the national curriculum of their country. While other students are welcome to enroll, the course is not intended for American students or students studying in an American, International Baccalaureate, or Advanced Placement curriculum. The course is also intended for students who do not have access to university counseling – if you attend a school that offers university counseling, your counselor is the best source of information on applying to university. Finally, this course is for undergraduate (Bachelors degree) freshmen (students who have not attended any university) applicants. Undergraduate transfer applicants, students who have attended a university, will find some of the information helpful, but graduate (Masters and Doctoral) applicants will not.

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教学方

Erick Hyde
University Connection Counseling Specialist

脚本

During your research, you're going to find

a lot of information about application deadlines.

An application deadline is the date by which you have to submit

your application and the rest of your application documents to a university.

Understand that most application deadlines are not flexible.

If you miss the deadline, you might miss your chance to apply.

Deadlines are going to control your whole process.

So it is important that you understand the different

types of deadlines that you are going to find.

The two main types of deadlines that we're

going to discuss are deadline admission and rolling admission.

In deadline admission, universities will publish a single deadline date.

The schools will collect applications up to that date.

And after the deadline date, they will evaluate the applications

and choose the best students from among the applications they receive.

Now remember, the best students are not always

the ones with the highest grades or test scores.

But they are the best students for that university.

In deadline admission, you can have up to three different ways to apply.

First, there's early admission or early decision.

They're two terms that refer to the same thing.

These are usually the earliest deadlines

arriving in November and the earliest notification.

You will usually receive your answer in about two months.

You can only apply to one school through early

admission or early decision, because it is a binding application.

Binding means that if you apply early decision and you are accepted, you must

attend that school and withdraw all other applications to other universities.

When you apply through early admission, you will

actually sign a contract agreeing to do this.

So you have to love a school in order to apply early decision.

Applying early admission is a big decision.

And you need to seriously consider what an early

admission application means before actually applying through this program.

Applying early is, however, the ultimate way to show your interest in a school.

So if you do love a certain school and your best application

can be ready by November, early admission might be a good option for you.

Another option in deadline admission is early action.

This deadline follows similar timing.

You'll apply in November and receive a decision within two months.

However, early action is non-binding.

If you are accepted through early action, you do

not have to attend that school if you're accepted.

And you do not have to withdraw your applications from other schools.

Sometimes you'll see what's called single choice early action, which means

you can only apply to that one school through early action.

But that is more rare.

Early action is a great way to show your interest in a

school and to get your admission decision sooner rather than later.

And all of it is without the obligation to attend that school.

The third option in deadline admission is regular decision.

Regular decision deadlines are most commonly in January or February.

But sometimes they can be earlier.

For example, the University of California system has a November 30th deadline.

The University of Texas at Austin has a December 1st deadline.

Regular decision is also non-binding, and decisions are usually received sometime

between February and March, depending on when the application deadline was.

Now the second main type of deadline is rolling admission.

In rolling admission, universities will

evaluate applications as they are completed.

In this method, universities are

constantly reviewing applications and sending decisions.

The first students to complete their

application will receive their decision first.

The next students to complete their

application will receive their decisions next.

Because applications are evaluated as they are received, applicants

are mostly being compared to a set of criteria or requirements.

The best students are those who meet the criteria.

Now, it's not harder or easier to get into a school that uses rolling admission.

It's just different.

One important thing to keep in mind is

that schools on rolling admission can fill up quickly.

If you wait too long to apply, you

will find that there are naturally less spaces available.

Often, to get one of those remaining spaces, the admissions criteria can

be harder at the end of the process than it was earlier in the process.

If you have rolling admission schools on your

list, definitely consider applying earlier rather than later.

Now that you know what the deadlines mean, you have

to think about when you are going to submit your application.

Ask yourself, is this my best application or could

my application be better if I wait to apply?

Think about your test scores, your English skills.

How much time you have to write essays and much more, which we'll discuss.

Will your best application be ready in November?

Or December?

Or January?

We're actually going to discuss planning a little bit more in the next section.

Finally, if you feel like the only weak

point in your application is your English language

ability, there are two types of special admission

programs that you might want to look for.

The first is called conditional admission.

In conditional admission, universities will evaluate your application on

all of these pieces, except for your English language test scores.

If they feel like you would be a

good student, they can offer you conditional acceptance

which says, we will fully accept you as

soon as you meet our English language requirement.

The good thing about conditional admission is

that you can complete the application process by

the deadline even if your English test scores

maybe aren't as high as you would like.

You also have the security of knowing the university wants to accept you.

You just have to meet that one final requirement.

Remember, you cannot attend a school with only a conditional admission.

You still have to fulfill that last requirement to get

your full acceptance before you can enroll in a university.

Now, not all schools will offer conditional admission.

It's not always an option, and generally, you will

not find conditional admission offered at highly selective schools.

Furthermore, there's really no way to do a

general search for schools that offer conditional admission.

The best way to look for them is to

check school by school as you're doing your research.

The second type of special admission program goes by different names,

but most commonly, they're called either bridge or pathways programs.

These programs are offered by colleges and universities that

also have an intensive English language program on campus.

A bridge program allows a student to enroll in both the

university and the English program at the same time.

Part of the courses will be English language courses.

And the other part of the courses will be degree courses.

Usually, after a year of good performance, the students will move

out of the bridge program and become a full-time bachelor's degree student.

Again, the difficulty with finding bridge programs

is that they all go by different names.

And there's really no way to do a general search for these programs.

So once again, you'll want to look for these special

types of programs as you do your research school by school.

When to apply is a big decision.

Remember, let your best application guide you on your path to applying.

We'll talk more about that path next.

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