Last week, we sent off my daughter’s college application package to the University of Central Florida - her school of choice. They don’t have a cut-off date for apps - when you send them in, they review them and make a decision.
Of course, when we went to the open house, the question I neglected to ask was “How long does the process take?” I vaguely recall them indicating that the sooner you apply, the sooner you get an answer, especially since many kids tend to wait till the last minute to apply.
So I turn to the voices of experience. When you applied to college(s), how long did you have to wait to get an answer? Did your school only review apps after certain deadline dates or did they deal with them as they got them? Did anyone apply way early? My daughter won’t be starting till next August, so we’re nearly a year early.
I’m not in a panic or anything - just wondering at what point I should panic. And I know they’ve received her package because the check has been cashed.
Let’s see, most of my applications were due in Mid-Dec - Jan 1, and I heard from most of them around the 2nd week of April.
So, about 3 1/2 months. I think all of my schools were of the “we wait till we get 'em all, then we decide” variety though.
It never hurts to call them up and confirm that they’ve received your application and it is complete, etc. Especially with you being so far ahead of the deadline, they probably aren’t swamped yet. I have a friend that initially didn’t received a confirmation postcard from her “#1 please please please let me get in” school. She called them up and it turned out they had misfiled her application! Whew, crisis averted!
IIRC, at most schools April 1 is the day acceptances are sent out and May 1 is when you have to decide. However, UCF has rolling admissions (I think), so it oughta take six to eight weeks. (It might be sooner since she applied so early, and the people who apply at the crunch would probably get theirs later.) I would give them at least six weeks, before you start calling.
So mid-October then… I’ll try not to fidget and fret too much until then. Maybe if/when they send confirmation of receipt they’ll tell us how long it may take. It sure would be nice to have this resolved before midterms.
It depends on the college. (September is awfully early to apply, in most cases – is she going for some sort of early decision/early action?)
In any case, some colleges have rolling admissions, which means you’ll hear within a month or so. That happened with my daughter: she got an acceptance within two weeks to her backup school.
She also applied Early Decision and got the acceptance in December, the time they say in their literature.
Traditional admissions go out in April.
So it all depends on the type of admission plan the college is using.
Actually, when we attended the Open House in July, the head of admissions said that Sep/Oct was a great time to apply. He said that they don’t have to be quite as picky as they might be later in the year. Not that I’m concerned about that - my daughter’s scores and GPA are all on the high end of the range of students admitted. The final cutoff to apply for next fall is May 1, according to their website.
To my mind, it’s better to be early than get lost in the throng, right? Well, that, and I just tend to be an early person.
Shippensburg has a rolling admissions policy, so they don’t have a due date. If you’re not accepted for the fall semester, you can start in the spring.
That said, I turned my application in January 14, and got my acceptance letter at the end of April. I did have to arrange for transcripts and test scores to be sent directly to Ship, and some of my previous colleges tend to be on the slow side. Once they had what they wanted, I had to wait for the admissions committee to make a decision.
Since your daughter is in high school, the process shouldn’t take so long.
Fairy - I am on the Admissions Committee at my school. We do not have roling admissions because we are a highly selective Liberal Arts College…So we are not one of the Big State schools. However, I know there are some rules that apply to the decision making that are fairly standard.
First
This is not always the case. Calling the admissions office may sound like the logical thing to do right? But tell me who you are going to ask for that will have the information you are looking for? Most likely a receptionist will answer the phone and have a pad answer for all those hopfull applicants and parents.
recommendation:
Now if you get on the website and look up the assistant director of admissions, or an admission counselor, get their name and when you call ask for them directly. When you get them on the phone ask if they would not mind being your liason for finding out information regarding your application. If you do it nicely, you should get a positive answer.
Your daughter is in highschool and is applying at the perfect time in my opinion. She should be fine. calling people on the phone has the added bonus of making your name stick in their minds. Good luck to your daughter.
If you want another data point: Last year, U-M sent out their first admit decisions at the very end of October.
September is not too early; we get a staggering amount of resident applications first thing when the academic year starts. But at least here, they don’t do any big action on them until October.
I did manage to dig thru their website and find that once they have all the documents, it’s about 2-4 weeks. I expect the only document that could hold it up is her transcript - and that gets sent electronically. So maybe we’ll know by the end of the month!