Should I Apply Early To College? --- The guide to early College application. Jun 03 '01 (Updated May 31 '05)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line Apply early, or suffer the consequences. To begin our trip we are going to flashback to 1995. (Insert wavy picture as the present blurs out and we reappear back in Renton, Washington 6 years ago). We meet up with our case study, Mr.. Ryan Gamble as he is heading out to Cross Country practice at his high school. He seems to not have a care in the world running through his head. From the casual observer, one would think that he has already planned out his entire future, and he then does not even need to worry about it at the present time. But, as observers we already know that Ryan has not made any plans for after high school beyond knowing that he wants to attend college. What does he want to do when he gets to college? Well his thought process is that he will figure out what he wants to do in life after he gets there. When asked why he wants to go to college, his response is that he thinks that people who go to college have a better chance at jobs after college. After our brief encounter with Ryan during his Fall Semester of a senior year in 1995, we flash forward to Winter of 1996. Suddenly Ryan realizes that he needs to be applying for colleges if he wants to stand a chance of getting into a good one before he graduates from high school. All the freedom that he has been enjoying for so long suddenly looks like wasted time to him as he realizes that he is not even prepared to submit an application to any University. He sloppily puts together his first application and send it out to the University of Washington. Knowing that the college is located within 15 miles of his house, he does not even take into consideration the fact that he might be turned down, and he does not even apply for a second college. A couple of weeks later he receives a letter that states he has been declined entrance to the University of Washington. Our hero now is faced with the only other prospect that he has considered. He sits down and puts a lot of thought into his application to Washington State University. He has a lot of academic awards, he has lettered in several sports, and his grades are quite good, so he has a lot to put into the application. He finishes it up, sends it out, and within 3 weeks receives a confirmation letter back saying that he has been accepted for the following year into the University. He is ecstatic, and his entire family rejoices as they learn that he will be given the great chance to make a lot of himself after getting out of high school. He has made it into college after a long, and hard-fought 4 years of high school. This was several years ago, and all of it is still fresh in my mind for a number of reasons. First of all, I often think about what would have happened had I not just barely made it in before the deadline to be accepted at college. I would have missed out on a lot of the opportunities that presented themselves when I came to WSU, and my friend base would have turned out a lot different as well. As it stands, I have made friends at college that I would not trade for anything, and the thought process that I may have screwed that up merely because I was too lazy to fill out an application early makes me upset. But, the reasons for making sure that you fill out your applications for college early do not just stop at the fact that your life would be different. The biggest key, and reason to filling out your applications early, is to keep your options open. If you have a number of colleges that you are thinking about, the earlier that you apply, the more time that you are able to make a decision based on whether or not your choice school or schools has accepted you. By doing this, you take the stress off of you that you might not make it into college right after high school. The most important thing though is the monetary importance of getting your applications sent in early. Upon being accepted to college, you can then begin to start asking for school or federal aid in helping you pay for your education. Despite the populate belief to the contrary, the aid does run out after a certain number of people. The money for such things as "work study" is determined almost on a first-come first-serve basis. What work study is, is a certain amount of money that the Government pays you on top of what you make at a job on campus. So, if you make $7.00, the Gov would bump it up to $10.00. This is so that it makes you work for some of the money that you are receiving to help you go to school. Another reason to apply early, especially at WSU, are room scholarships. At WSU, the earlier a person applies to the college, the more likely they are to get money taken off of their room and board costs during the semester. I missed out on this opportunity because of lateness of my application, and I regret it now today, when I think of how much money I could have saved with the discount that they would have given me at WSU. The thing to make sure that you do is plan ahead when you are starting to think about college. Finding out if you need to get applications in early or information of that sort can be found on the home-page of the given University that you are interested in attending. My advice to everyone out there, is that you take the break that is needed during high school, and start planning what you will be doing as soon as your senior year starts up. The excuse that you are just too busy could end up coming back to bite you a few years down the road when you are scrimping to pay for college expenses that you could have just avoided in the first place.

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