Application Process
Deadlines, plans, and the documents you submit to apply to a US university.
15 terms in this category
Early Decision
Early Decision is a binding college application option where the student commits in advance to enroll if admitted, in exchange for an earlier deadline and an earlier decision.
Early Decision II
Early Decision II (ED II) is a second binding early application round offered by many US colleges, with a January deadline and a February decision — functionally identical to Early Decision I but later in the cycle.
Early Action
Early Action is a non-binding early application plan that lets students apply and receive an admissions decision earlier than Regular Decision, without any commitment to enroll.
Restrictive / Single Choice Early Action
Restrictive Early Action (REA), also called Single Choice Early Action (SCEA), is a non-binding early application plan that forbids applying early to most other private colleges — a hybrid between Early Action and Early Decision used by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Notre Dame.
Common Application
The Common Application is a single online form used by more than 1,000 US colleges, letting students submit one core application — essay, transcript, activities, and recommendations — to multiple schools at once.
Coalition Application (Scoir)
The Coalition Application, now run on the Scoir platform, is an alternative to the Common App used by roughly 150 US colleges to accept applications and supporting documents.
Regular Decision
Regular Decision is the standard, non-binding US college application timeline, with January deadlines and decisions released in March or early April.
Rolling Admission
Rolling admission is an application policy under which colleges review and decide applications as they arrive, rather than waiting for a single deadline — applying earlier usually means hearing back earlier and facing less competition for seats.
Waitlist
A waitlist is a queue of applicants a college may admit later, if enrolled students drop out and open seats in the incoming class.
Deferred Admission
A deferral is the outcome of an Early Decision or Early Action application in which the college neither accepts nor rejects the student, instead re-reviewing the application in the Regular Decision pool alongside all other RD applicants.
Letter of Continued Interest (LOCI)
A Letter of Continued Interest (LOCI) is a short follow-up letter sent by an applicant who has been deferred or waitlisted, reaffirming that the college is still their top choice and sharing any new information since the original application.
Personal Statement
The Personal Statement is the main 650-word application essay required by the Common Application, in which students respond to one of seven prompts and use a single story to show US admissions committees who they are beyond grades and test scores.
Supplemental Essays
Supplemental essays are school-specific essay prompts that most selective US colleges add on top of the Common App Personal Statement, usually asking applicants to explain why they want to attend that particular school ('Why Us') or to respond to a unique prompt tied to the school's values.
Letter of Recommendation
A Letter of Recommendation is a formal letter written by a high school teacher, counselor, or (occasionally) a mentor, describing an applicant's intellectual strengths, character, and potential — one of the most heavily weighted non-academic pieces of a US college application.
School Profile
A School Profile is a standardized one-to-two-page document that a high school submits alongside each student's application, describing the school itself — its curriculum, grading scale, course offerings, student demographics, and how its graduates typically perform in college admissions.