Dr. Thom
Nov 5, 20211 min
Of the many reasons why we strongly encourage our students to apply early to the colleges on their lists, there is one reason most people do not consider:
Applying earlier to colleges will increase your eligibility for merit scholarships.
Most people don’t understand that the college application process has four distinct phases:
Getting ready to apply (sophomore year through summer before senior year)
Application season (August through December, senior year)
Scholarship season (December through February, senior year)
Decision season (March through May, senior year)
For most colleges, completing application season early (by October of senior year) opens the door for merit scholarship consideration. To put a finer point on that, in many cases, you can actually lose eligibility for merit scholarships if you choose to wait to submit your application.
For some schools, your application for admission serves as your application for scholarships, meaning that you do not need to indicate your interest in a particular scholarship. If you meet certain requirements, you will be awarded the grant. For other colleges, there is a supplemental scholarship application that you must complete to be considered for those scholarships.
Families in our college coaching program have access to our CollegeHub platform that provides each and every deadline and application/scholarship requirement for all of the schools on their students’ lists.
Here is a sample of the various colleges of interest for many of our families and the merit deadline for the 2021-22 application season (with links included):
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