Early Decision, Later Reflections
Recent features from The New York Times and US News & World Report college blogs reminded me of my own experience with the early decision option. Early decision typically means that the student submits the application in early to mid-autumn and hears back around early December. If admitted, the decision is binding.
By the time I applied to college, I had visited about a dozen campuses and seriously researched around thirty schools. I was heavily immersed in the admissions process and preparing to apply to several universities of varying degrees of competitiveness.
Shortly before beginning my senior year, my parents and I visited Barnard College and Vassar College. I loved both and knew that I would definitely apply to them as “reach” schools. Upon starting the school year, however, I learned that my classmates were submitting early decision applications in record numbers. Some sort of group panic seemed to set in and I felt a huge amount of pressure to pick somewhere for an early decision application.
I decided to apply early to Vassar because I’d loved it so much on my visit and, being a highly competitive school, conventional wisdom said that applying early would increase my chances of being admitted. I threw myself into my early application, interviewed with a local alumna, and worked half-heartedly on other applications while I sat on pins and needles waiting for the response.
Looking back, there were definite clues that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with my decision. A belated realization that Poughkeepsie is not particularly close to New York City changed my perception of life at Vassar and I freaked out when I paid closer attention to the math and science general education requirements.
Nevertheless, when the dreaded thin envelope arrived in the first week of December, I was crushed. I cried, I lamented the loss of my “dream” school, and then….well, then I got over it. After about two days of obsessing over what could have been, I found myself feeling strangely liberated. I could go back to finishing numerous applications instead of committing myself to one school without knowing if they wanted to commit to me—these applications felt exciting again instead of overwhelming (most of the time).
This is not to say that Vassar isn’t an excellent college or that it is not the right choice for many people. But I pushed myself into the early decision option when it really was not the most logical path for me. The moments of doubt I felt while waiting for the decision were very telling, as was the relief that developed after my initial frustrating at being rejected. Perhaps they saw something in my application that I could not see myself: hesitation, uncertainty, a lack of a clear understanding of how I would fit into the campus. Whatever the reason may be, I can honestly say now that I am grateful for that early rejection. Not only did it prepare me for a handful more, it made me value the colleges that did accept me ever more—and when I painstakingly decided between my two final choices, I knew that I was making a fully informed and thoughtful decision.
On my first day at Occidental College, I met a student who was transferring from Vassar. The irony was not lost on me. The college admissions process is very much about personal choices and, in my experience, nobody has to make that choice early if he/she is not ready to do so.
