Have you heard of this situation where you or someone you know has applied to college early action, so they’re supposed to find out by a certain date earlier, but when they log in on that date or the day after that date, their application says it’s still under review or it’s pending? What do you do if that happens to you, and why would that happen? In this blog, I’m going to talk about this circumstance that has affected several of my students this year and in past years, why it happens, and what you can do about it. I’m also going to give you three tips for what you should do if this is happening to you.
So, the first thing that a lot of students wonder is why this is happening. It’s pretty simple. It’s basically happening because the volume of applications was probably unanticipated, or it took them longer to get through the applications than they thought. So, they’re behind. I know for years, my early action students who lived in California would never, ever get a decision by the time that the University of Michigan promised it. And I just started putting that into my consulting, saying that if you’re going to EA to Michigan, don’t expect to find out by December 31st. You probably won’t because that used to be their date, but now they’ve pushed it back knowing that they can’t get through the volume of applications that they were getting.
And some of you might also wonder: why are the EA release dates later than ED? Well, some of it has to do with volume. When you do early action, it’s non-binding. So, they have a greater number of students attracted to that kind of admission plan. And California students are universally at the bottom of the pile, so unless they’re a legacy, nobody’s finding out early. That’s how it used to be. And I’m sure other schools have invoked this, although they might not invoke it every year. It might not happen all the time, but when they can’t get through that volume, this is something schools sometimes do. They get overloaded.
But the other thing that can happen is that it could be a legitimate mistake. So the first thing that you should do is to make sure it wasn’t a clerical error and check in with the school. You can check in with the school directly about your particular application, but you can also look for official announcements that might be on their social media or on their admissions website that give a disclaimer about their early action decisions. It might be on the page where they list the early action release date, where they might give a note that certain out-of-state students may not have received their admissions decisions yet, and if you’re pending, don’t worry about it; we are behind because we got 10,000 more applications than we expected. So, if you find something like that, that’s probably fine. They also might directly email you to explain the situation. If you haven’t gotten either of those as confirmation, I would go ahead and send an email to the admissions department at the school and explain the situation and say you wanted to make sure there wasn’t a mistake. Nobody’s going to get mad at you. They told you they would tell you by late January, and if it’s January 31st at 7 PM and you haven’t heard anything, send them an email. Figure it out; that’s totally normal, and it won’t get you in trouble.
The second thing to do, if relevant, is you can send update letters or letters of continued interest to schools that still haven’t sent you a decision if they’ve essentially deferred telling you or you’re still under review. Now, if you have no actual updates, that could be a one-line email where you say something like, “I saw that I’m still under review, and please know that I really hope to get a decision soon. I’m extremely interested in your college or university, and let me know if there’s anything else you need from me.”
Though usually with a letter of continued interest, I want to know updates that might shift the lever in your favor if any happen to exist. Now, some schools may not look at this at all. My general rule of thumb with LOCIs is if they don’t forbid you to send it, then you’re fine sending it, and it won’t hurt you, and it could even help you. If people know you’re engaged, that works towards that idea of demonstrated interest. Most of the schools that are doing things like this are more likely to hold demonstrated interest in consideration versus, I think, elite private universities where this usually doesn’t happen. It’s more state schools that just have such large application volume and variable application volume that it can be unpredictable.
But yeah, if you’ve got updates, send them. I’ve got a whole video on letters of continued interest, so I’m not going to get into the details of what you should put in that letter and how you should frame it. It’s all the same thing, whether you’re deferred or whether there’s no E.A. decision yet and you’re still under review. It’s just reasserting your interest.
And finally, my third tip is to just relax and wait. I know this is stressful, but realistically, most college applications were already due. There are a few that have later application deadlines, and maybe your plan was to hear from your E.A., and then if you didn’t get in, you’d apply to more, and you didn’t want to pay those fees. Unfortunately, this is the way that it works. It’s kind of hard to speed people up who haven’t given you information, and you might have to apply to those additional schools. I know it’s a pain, but just wait and proceed as if you didn’t get in at this point, and then hopefully you’ll be hearing from that university shortly. Thank you guys so much for reading, and if you need any support in this process, we have myself and other coaches who can help you try to figure out how to best put together a letter of continued interest or do whatever it is you need to do. Hope this helped!
