Take Preliminary Entrance Exams
Most students take the PSAT starting in 10th grade. The PSAT the official precursor to the SAT mirrors the SAT by testing students in three core areas: mathematics, reading comprehension, and writing/grammar. The PSAT takes place in mid-October.
Unlike the SAT, the score that students receive on their PSAT exam does not impact their chances of college admission. However, high scores may qualify students for a National Merit Scholarship or other financial aid awards. Students can also use their PSAT score to assess their readiness for the SAT both tests use essentially the same scoring formula. The material and format of the test is also useful to students who take the ACT instead of the SAT.
When Should You Register For The Sat
Once youve selected your ideal date, the next step is registering online for the SAT. You can do that starting when test year registration opens in April until the deadline for your test date.
If theres a test center and date you really want, it makes sense to register early and guarantee your seatsome test centers fill up and that could force you to choose a different date and location. This particularly applies to international SAT test takers, as certain countries have a limited number of test centers and seats.
Sat Test Center Locations
The SAT is administered at thousands of testing centers across the country, often high schools or colleges. However, not every test center is open for every test date and they dont offer the same number of seats.
Students often feel most comfortable taking the SAT in a familiar location, like their own high school. Check to see if your school is a test center and if so, which SAT dates it offersthis may determine the date you choose. If your school isnt a test center, you may want the location closest to you and that location may only offer the SAT on certain dates. You can find SAT test centers using our online search tool or The SAT and SAT Subject Tests Domestic Code List, which details all test centers and test dates.
Also Check: What College Accepts The Lowest Gpa
When Do College Acceptance Letters Arrive For Regular Decision For Early Decision Or Early Action
College Admissions , College Info
Applying to college is a confusing and stressful process, but waiting to hear back from the colleges you applied to can be just as anxiety-inducing. When do college acceptance letters arrive?
In this guide, we explain when to expect to receive your college decision notifications. We also give you a chart of estimated college acceptance dates for 2021 and offer helpful tips on what to do as you wait for your college acceptance letters.
Get The Suppliesyou Need
Dont under-estimate the amount of supplies you will need to set up your dorm room. If you wait for last minute to get it all, you will end up paying a lot. Instead of making a list of things to buy, why not start by asking around.
Ask family members for dorm room supplies like colorful folders and notebooks, interesting wall hangings, and luggage. Youll be surprised to find that almost everyone will have extras that they are more than happy to let you have.
Just because youre a senior doesnt mean you can coast and slack during one of the most important times of your academic life. If you use our list to keep yourself organized and get yourself ready for your freshman year of college, you and your family will be happier and youll feel much more at ease when you start college.
Use College Raptor to discover personalized college matches, cost estimates, acceptance odds, and potential financial aid for schools around the USfor FREE!
Also Check: What Is The Easiest College To Get Into
Keep Tabs On All Your Applications
You sent out all the applications you wanted to. Have you heard anything back from anyone yet? Make sure you keep track of all your applications and college prep items. Now is the perfect time to make sure the schools you are interested in are interested in you. Follow up with e-mails and phone calls if you dont hear anything after a couple of weeks.
Determine If You Should Take The Sat And Act
This is a great time to find out if the SAT and/or ACT are required for your school. While many colleges do not require an SAT or ACT score for admissions, your test scores may be used to determine your first-year college course placement.
For example, at the University of Nevada, Reno we do not require an ACT or SAT score for general admission. However, to be placed into certain courses, like math or English, we look at AP, IB, Dual Credit, SAT, ACT, placement exams, etc. to determine which math or English course you will take your first year. For help understanding your scores and placement options, reach out to an admissions coordinator.
Recommended Reading: Is College Right For Me
What If Asking The Right Question Can Help High School Seniors Apply To College
Two little words in the form of a question have the potential to change lives: What If?
Just by asking high school seniors, What if? we can ignite their aspirations. What if they want to create the next big social media app? What if they want to find a new way to help people? What if they have a method of unlocking a mystery thats perplexed humankind?
The What If question is a starting point it allows high school counselors, college advisors, parents, relatives, and friends to then explain how bringing those aspirations to life requires education, training, and experience.
Mississippi student applies with support from a school counselor.
Shannon High School of Lee County School District
Today, Friday, September 17, the American College Application Campaign is holding its annual #WhyApply Day, kicking off a season of activities designed to encourage more students to apply to college, particularly those who often face systemic barriers to access and opportunity, including students from low-income families as well as Black, Latinx, and Native American students.
In support of #WhyApply Day, ACACs social media campaign asks students What If? as a way for them to express their ambitions and to think introspectively while providing educators, mentors, family members, and those who support students with a conversation starter.
Students from Lee County School District in Mississippi apply to college.
Shannon High School of Lee County School District
When To Apply For Fall And Spring Internships
For fall internships, you should consider contacting employers before you leave your college area in the spring if you will not be able to return until the fall semester. October is a good time to start reaching out to employers for a spring internship.
If an employer indicates that they are not yet ready to consider applicants, then ask when would be the earliest date that you might be considered given your high level of interest in the opportunity. Local slots for unpaid internships are often filled on a first come, first served basis, so more opportunities will be available if you apply early.
Don’t Miss: How Many Years Do Architects Go To College
Visit Schools You Are Interested In
Its best to get school visits in early, either over the summer break right before your senior year or during the fall.
Interested in a school thats out-of-state or on the other side of the country? Long weekends or special breaks may be the best times to visit. may be impractical and unaffordable, but visiting as many schools as you can, and getting as much information in-person as possible will help you make better decisions all round.
I Want To Take A Gap Year
If this sounds like you, when do you apply for college? Actually, your timeline might still involve applying senior year. Lots of schools allow you to defer your admissions decision for a year. Deferring your admissions decision means you would still apply by an early or regular deadline, or rolling admissions, and then if you got accepted, you’d defer your enrollment for one academic year.
You might be thinking that you want to travel and then figure out where to go to college. This could be a good option too, but remember that your deadlines might still be in January. That means you’ll still need to have your SAT scores finalized, letters of recommendation gathered, and essays written throughout the fallpossibly while you’re traveling the world!
If applying to colleges while youre traveling doesnt sound like the plan for you, remember this: Not all that much time will have passed since high school, so it could be a lot easier to get your application materials collected while you’re still in the swing of school and used to being a student.
If you’ve been out of school already for a year or two, then that’s a different story.
Read Also: Where Can I Watch College Hill Season 1
When Do You Apply For Early Admissions
Early admissions includes two options: early decision and early action. While early decision and early action differ in terms of their requirements and conditions, they share similar timelines. Both plans have a deadline in November and allow you to hear back about your admissions decision in mid-December.
Some popular schools with early action deadlines of November 1 are CalTech, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, Notre Dame, Stanford, University of Virginia, and Yale. Popular early decision schools with a November 1 deadline include Boston University, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern, NYU, University of Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt.
Some schools with early decision now also offer an Early Decision II deadline, which is in . Like Early Decision I, this binding option lets you hear back early from your first choice school, usually in February, about whether or not you got in. The main advantage of applying Early Decision II is that youll have a little extra time to polish up your application before submitting it. Some popular schools with Early Decision II deadlines of January 1 are Brandeis, Colby, Emory, NYU, Smith, and Vanderbilt.
Early admissions can be a great option for students who are prepared to apply early and appreciate early notification. If you’re planning to apply early, when do you complete each step of the process?
College Acceptance Dates 2021
We have a general understanding of when college acceptance letters arrive. But when do college decisions come out in 2021? And how do these decision dates differ depending on the college?
To answer these two questions, we put together an extensive list of popular schools and their reported or estimated college acceptance dates for 2021.
All dates below represent the last day by which you should receive an admissions decision notification thus, it’s possible you could receive a decision earlier.
All schools are listed alphabetically.
| School |
| RD: January 2, 2021 |
*Estimated Ivy Day 2021 based on the patterns of previous years. Ivy Day is always at the end of March. See our guide to Ivy Day for more info about how we came up with this date.
Want to build the best possible college application?
We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world’s best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We’ve overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League.
We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools.
Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.
Also Check: What Colleges Are Still Accepting Applications For Fall 2021
Compare Your Options And Commit
Once students receive responses from all the schools they applied to, their final decision process can begin. If they have been admitted to more than one school, they should consider variables like institutional financial aid offerings, room and board costs, and geographical distance from home. Most schools do not require accepted students to make their final declaration until the following year.
Students should visit as many campuses as they can to compare campus environments. If possible, speak to other students, professors, faculty members, and financial aid officers. If in-person visits are not possible, students should take time to contact school officials by telephone or email.
May 1 202: Deadline To Confirm Offers Of Admission
Applicants must confirm their acceptance of an offer of admission by this date. Log in to your ontariocolleges.ca account to confirm your offer.
Colleges may extend offers of admission after this date. Each college will set the deadline to confirm offers made after May 1, and this deadline will be communicated to you with your offer.
Read Also: Who Buys Textbooks
Employers With Early Deadlines
Many organizations with competitive training programs will begin recruiting early in the fall and start making offers in late November.
Industries such as investment banking, consulting, and accounting are well known as early recruiters. Investment banks now recruit very heavily from their summer internship programs, so juniors should start applying for these opportunities early in their junior year.
Hiring managers from these fields often begin recruiting early, because there are multiple rounds of interviews and testing to complete.
Additionally, those who are typically interested in banking, consulting, and other business management roles are usually involved in a business track with internships or development programs, making it easy for companies to recruit already-interested students.
Apply For Financial Aid And Scholarships
If you know you’ll need some help with money in order to attend college, these months of waiting for decisions to come out are an ideal time to shift your focus from college applications to FAFSA and scholarships.
Applying for FAFSA makes you eligible to receive federal-, state-, and/or college-sponsored financial aid, including loans, grants, and work-study.
If you’re interested in winning free scholarship money, I’d advise you to do some research on any college scholarships you might be eligible for. These scholarships can be based on merit, such as your GPA and SAT/ACT scores, or financial need .
For more tips on how to find and apply for scholarships, check out our financial aid blog posts as well as our most popular scholarship and aid guides:
Also Check: What College Accepts The Lowest Gpa
So When Should You Apply For Scholarships The Short Answer Is: Whenever You Can
Scholarships, both federal and privately funded, are probably the best way to pay for college. They dont have to be paid back, unlike loans, and there are plenty of opportunities out there for all kinds of students. The US Department of Education alone awards over 46 billion dollars worth of scholarships and grants every single year. Add the colleges/universities that also award aid on top of private sources, and you get a substantial amount of money.
When should you apply is sort of a two-tiered questionwhen as in, what time of year? And when as in, what grade level?
Understand Loans Grants And Work
Need-based financial aid comes in three main forms, and having a clear understanding of their differences is essential to make sure you are applying for the aid that best suits your circumstances.
- LoansFederal student loans are a common form of need-based financial aid to help students make up the difference left after any merit-based aid is applied. These loans require repayment beginning after you are no longer enrolled in college or drop below half-time enrollment.
- GrantsUnlike student loans, grants are a need-based financial aid that does not need to be repaid upon graduation. There are several Federal and state grants available to students in need, and filling out the FASFA is the first step to figuring out which ones are available to you.
- Work-StudyThe Federal work-study program offers part-time employment to students that demonstrate a financial need. This allows the student to earn money that can be used to pay towards educational expenses while working in a field that supports their studies.
Also Check: College Hill Virginia State Cast
Meet With Your Counselor To Review Your College List And Essay
Beginning of senior year is a good time to meet with your high school guidance counselor or other college prep professional to discuss your college plans. If you dont have a complete college list yet, get your counselors input on colleges that might be a good match for you and be sure to mention any colleges youre interested in or curious about. Your counselor has an objective view of your strengths and your chances at the colleges you are considering. Your counselor might also suggest additional colleges that might be a good match for you. Start searching for colleges now with College Search.
Discuss your college essay with your counselor–especially if you wrote a first draft over the summer. If not, see 6 Tips to Start Your College Essay.
Dont Base Your Choice On Finances Alone
There are many factors that go into choosing a college that is right for you. Not only should it cover your desired course of study, but it also needs to be a match for your lifestyle and financial situation. Have a full-time job and not sure how you can juggle school and the rest of your responsibilities? Compare traditional and online college courses to see which is a better fit. You can also check out our list of the most respected online universities.
Ultimately, you want to choose the university thats the best fit for you and your long-term goals. A college education is one of the best investments you can make for your future.
Applying to college is a big step towards your future, and it is a given that your educational journey can come with a high price-tag. That doesnt mean there arent options! With the assistance of scholarships, loans, and grants, it is possible to achieve your goals without breaking the bank.
You May Like: Berkeley College Woodland Park Nj Tuition