More High School Seniors Are Completing Their College Applications Early

As his plane soared somewhere between Annapolis, Md. and Kansas City, senior Jack Harrigan made up his mind—he wanted to attend the United States Naval Academy.

Harrigan had spent a week at the academy, and he had endured all the rigors that a typical student there goes through. He woke up at 5 a.m. each day. He performed exhausting amounts of push-ups and sit-ups and long runs. He took on the obstacle courses at the academy. And he loved every minute of it.

“When I got back, I realized that I want to be challenged,” Harrigan said. “I don’t want to go to college and just skate through. It was exhausting, but once I got back, I just thought about how I wanted to go back and do it all over again.”

Harrigan is one of the many high school seniors these days to have made up his mind at such an early date. According to a story in an August edition of the New York Times, high school seniors, including some of East’s own, are applying to colleges earlier than ever before.

Counselor Laurie Carter has been at East for ten years, and she has seen the upward trend in admissions firsthand. She attributes this spike to the improving overall awareness of students toward the application process.

“School [admissions] are getting more competitive,” Carter said. “The value of a college education has increased. People get it more so than they did in the past. There is a huge value in having a college diploma so that you can get a job.”

Madison Loeb, an admissions representative at Kansas State University, feels that college applicants have become “smarter consumers,” leading to the increase in earlier admissions.

“It seems like students are smarter about knowing what’s out there,” Loeb said. “They start searching around their sophomore or junior year, so by the time they get to their senior year, they want to get everything taken care of early.”

Loeb sees a chain effect that pays off for the student when they apply earlier. The sooner the applicants turns in their admissions, the sooner they can apply for housing and scholarships, which can help Loeb out on her end.

“It makes it easier so we can make sure they have everything they need,” Loeb said. “We want students to get scholarships just like they do, so we can follow up and help them through the process with more time if they apply earlier.”

Jessica Walters, a senior admissions counselor at the University of Kansas, says that she has seen a definite increase in phone calls and e-mails from potential applicants. She sees the trend as a sign that students not only want to figure out their future education as soon as possible, but also organize their future financial commitments.

“Their parents are trying to figure out how much it’s going to cost, and they want to plan for it as soon as possible given the economy,” Walters said.

Both KU and KSU have rolling admissions, so the schools can return a quicker decision to students that apply earlier.

While Loeb sees no true drawbacks to an earlier application, Walters has seen cases in which the applicant could have dedicated more time to the process.

“If a student applies early and rushes through their application, they might have some errors and it might not be as concise and neat as it could be,” Walters said. “I don’t want them to apply early just to apply early. That’s the only drawback.”

While Carter said that determining whether a student is applying too early is judged on a case-by-case basis, she can see some of the ways the recent trend has benefited her personally.

“We encourage the students to let us know [where they’re applying],” Carter said. “Last year, I wrote 34 recommendations. It takes awhile.”

Senior Alissa Pollack already knows where she’s headed next fall. She attended a Junior Scholars Program at Miami of Ohio this summer, and now, according to Pollack, her acceptance at the school will be a mere formality.

“I applied in March for this program, and you go to school all summer and you take classes,” Pollack said. “If you meet all the requirements, you still have to apply but you knew that you get in by August 1. I already know that I got in.”

Pollack filled out an entire college application to the school and sent it in, and she will get her letter in the mail on Dec. 22. By keeping a 3.5 grade point average during her seven-week stay this summer, Pollack assured herself of a spot at the university in Oxford, Ohio.

Unlike Pollack, Harrigan has just begun a lengthy application process to gain entry to the Naval Academy, which had a 10 percent acceptance rate last fall, according to US News.

“It’s like getting into an Ivy League school, just as hard,” Harrigan said.

Since his dad was in the Marine Corps for 21 years, including service in the first Gulf War, Harrigan was able to clear his first hurdle: a nomination from either the president, a congressman or another acceptable alternative – in this case a retired Marine. Now, he’s currently working on securing a congressional nomination to the academy in order to improve his chances of admission.

Harrigan sees the benefits in applying to colleges at an earlier date, but he said it hasn’t softened the workload.

“It kind of makes things easier that I don’t have to think about it anymore,” Harrigan said. “But right now, I’m not even working on homework. I’m working on writing to congressmen and trying to get letters of recommendation. That’s really replaced my homework.”

Pollack has enjoyed the relaxation that comes with knowing what the future holds. Other seniors haven’t quite made it that far in their college search. Senior Peter Bautz is currently working on applications for 10 different schools, and he estimates that the process, which he began nearly a month ago, has added up to around 20-24 hours of total work. Instead of lounging around before bedtime, Bautz works on supplements to each school’s application, along with essay writing for his common application.

“It definitely changed my evening routine,” Bautz said.

However, Bautz—who has a current top five of Harvard, Princeton, Amherst, Grinnell and Macalester—hopes that the work that he puts in now will pay off in the long run.

“It’s probably going to stay stressful for the next couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to avoid major stress by not waiting until the last minute to submit everything,” Bautz said. “I’ve had the luxury of time to be able to sit down without being rushed to write in a week, as opposed to having two months to write a good essay.”

Pollack is past the rigor of college applications, and she’s not looking back.

“It takes so much stress off of senior year,” Pollack said. “Everyone’s worrying about where they’re going to apply, and I don’t have to think about it anymore.”