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):
College | Merit Deadline | To learn more . . . |
Arizona State University | 1/15 | |
Auburn University | 12/1 | |
Boston College | 11/1 | |
Boston University | 12/1 | |
Claremont McKenna College | 12/1 | |
Clemson University | 12/1 | |
DePaul University | 11/15 | |
Emory University | 11/15 | |
Florida State University | 11/1 | |
Georgia Institute of Technology | 10/18 | |
Grinnell College | 12/1 | |
Indiana University | 11/1 | |
Loyola University Chicago | 12/1 | |
Miami University - Oxford | 12/1 | |
Michigan State University | 11/1 | |
The Ohio State University | 11/1 | |
Purdue University | 11/1 | |
Saint Louis University | 12/1 | |
Texas Christian University | 11/1 | |
University of Alabama | 12/1 | |
University of Cincinnati | 12/1 | |
University of Florida | 11/1 | |
University of Kentucky | 12/1 | |
University of Miami | 11/1 | |
University of Oregon | 11/1 | |
University of Richmond | 12/1 | |
University of South Carolina | 11/15 | |
University of Southern California | 12/1 | |
University of Tennessee - Knoxville | 12/15 | |
Vanderbilt University | 12/1 | |
Virginia Polytechnic Institute | 1/22 | |
Wake Forest University | 11/15 |
Not working with us yet? Feeling stressed by the college search process? Let's chat.