I remember saying (many times, in fact) when I was on the road this fall that the Early Action deadline of November 1 "comes up very quickly." And it did. The counseling staff leaves the office to begin travel season in early September and in the blink of an eye, here we are on November 7, beginning to review Early Action applications...

Last Friday, the entire counseling staff (minus one travel-weary member who was still on the west coast visiting high schools!) met for about four hours to talk about the application review process. At this annual "reading meeting," we discuss the current applicant pool and what we will be looking for as we review applications this year. Now, because today is only November 7 and the EA deadline was November 1 (and because MANY students get their applications into our office JUST in time!), we do not yet have all of the applications entered into our computer system, so I can't give you an exact count. What I can tell you is that we are pretty much in the same neighborhood as we were last year at Early Action -- last year we had approximately 3,200 applications EA and we expect to be at about that number again this year...

We have had lots of phone calls and e-mails from students (and parents) checking to make sure that their applications had arrived and seeing if they were complete. Tough questions to answer with the amount of transcripts, recommendations, and other supplemental materials that continue to arrive each day (we affectionately call all of these supporting credentials "loose pieces"-- and believe me, there are TONS of them here). So, if you are wondering if your history teacher has sent in her recommendation yet, I would ask you to please be patient... Once we have all of our applications and the aforementioned "pieces" entered into our computer system, we will be sending all EA applicants an e-mail updating them on the status of their application file (or in other words, if any pieces of the application are still missing!). This e-mail will likely be sent out in early December... so don't worry, we will let you know if anything is missing!!

When will decision letters go out? That is the other popular question of late... At this point, all I can tell you is sometime before January 1. The exact date will depend on the total number of EA applications and our Committee on Admission meeting schedule in early December. I will be able to give you a more concrete date as we move along in the process...

OK, that is enough writing for now... time to do some reading (of applications, that is!). More details from the "reading meeting" and more specifics on the review process to come... Stay tuned!

*Scott