New Year's Day is behind us now, along with those pesky January 1 application deadlines. Frankly, I find the January 1 application deadline tradition dumb. The "correct" date should actually be the first working day of January, not the holiday of New Year's Day.

What really bugs me is when colleges extend their deadlines at the last second. Of course, this is a blessing for the true procrastinators but can be quite irksome for all those who toiled to get their applications in before the last second. (Yeah, don't get me started about the last-second crowd.)

As I often do here in my little blog, I reference the College Confidential discussion forum, using it as a terrific resource for valuable up-to-the-minute information about myriad college process issues. Today I want to do that again. This time, the topic is a helpful thread entitled Official List of Schools with Later Deadlines.

Why might this be important for you? Well, maybe you're looking for one or two additional colleges that may be worthy of your application efforts. Also, maybe you missed a January1 deadline for a school or two and need to fill out your candidate list. Whatever the reason, it won't hurt you to check out the comments from among the 112 or so posts.  Here's a sampling:

Okay, the 01/01/10 deadline has now passed unfortunately. Let's make a running list of schools that have later deadlines or that had their deadline extended. Copy and paste the list above your post and add the school and the date.

1. Brown- 1/4

2. Georgetown- 1/10

3. Michigan- 2/1

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Brown- 1/4

Georgetown- 1/10

Michigan- 2/1

Cornell- 1/2

Duke- 1/2

Chicago- 1/2

Binghamton- 1/15

Swarthmore- 1/2

Alfred- 2/1

Lewis & Clark- 2/1

Carleton- 1/15

Oberlin- 1/15

Claremont McKenna- 1/2

Columbia- 1/4

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How do schools with these deadlines expect kids to get transcripts postmarked in time? I may be overlooking this, but unless you have your counselor send in transcripts prior to Christmas, there is no way some applicants will make these deadlines.

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Quote:

How do schools with these deadlines expect kids to get transcripts postmarked in time? I may be overlooking this, but unless you have your counselor send in transcripts prior to Christmas, there is no way some applicants will make these deadlines.

You're supposed to ask for these things all in advance of holidays and breaks and such. On the Common App, though, your teachers and guidance counselors only fill out one form and it's sent to all the colleges you apply to automatically, so you could add more colleges after a break has started.

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University of Chicago - 1/2

Claremont McKenna College - 1/2

Cornell University - 1/2

Duke University - 1/2

Swarthmore College - 1/2

Boston University - 1/4

Brown University - 1/4

Columbia University - 1/4

Georgetown University- 1/10

USC - 1/10

Binghamton University- 1/15

Carleton College - 1/15

Fordham University - 1/15

McGill University - 1/15

Mount Holyoke - 1/15

Oberlin - 1/15

Smith - 1/15

Tulane University - 1/15

UNC-CH -1/15

Washington University in St.Louis 1/15

Alfred University- 2/1

Lewis & Clark College- 2/1

Michigan- 2/1

Caltech - 1/4

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Does anyone know how the select the people they want to give an extension to at Swarthmore? I recieved one, but I'm just curious how they pick it.

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Correction on Univ. of Southern California

Freshmen applications are to be in by January 11, 2010. I have the brochure on my desk.

Applications for merit scholarships, with a very few exceptions, were to be in the admissions office by Dec. 1, 2009.

Freshmen applications to the School of Cinematic Arts and the Thornton School of Music had deadlines of Dec. 1. 2009.

From the application: "USC is need-blind. A student's abilty to pay has no bearing on his or her admission."

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I saw another post somewhere on CC (today, I think) that linked to a pdf with all the Common App deadlines. I can't find the post right now, but I did find the pdf link on the Common App website, in the Download Forms section: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/...n2009_Grid.pdf

According to the CA website, the information is current as of 7/1/09.

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This thread shows the effect of U.S. News and World Report on colleges. Any school that is changing its deadline two weeks or more is doing it for the primary purpose of increasing applications and decreasing their admit rate (regardless of what they say).

How many students wait until several weeks after a deadline to submit an application to one of their “dream schools”? These colleges know that students who wait at least a week after the formerly published deadline are applying for superfluous reasons. Examples would be: to add one more safety school, to apply to a school they really weren’t that interested in just because they have the time, etc.

These colleges all have more than enough qualified applicants by the original deadline. They know that very few of the stragglers will end up at their school, but the goal is to eek out every last application to decrease the admit rate. This is all about their college rankings, not about the kindness of their heart.

I think rankings by major publications should be abolished. Schools just keep dreaming up schemes to decrease their admit rate and up their rankings.

In any event, I think CC is providing a service by making a thread on the topic of extended deadlines.

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I realize that this is not the place to do this but I think it's complete bull that Dartmouth extended their deadline only for certain minorities. Yeah I am one of those minorities but what the hell kind of degrading **** is that?

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Dartmouth didn't just extend for minorities guys.....

I am white, going for science, from suburbs of PA, and i got it extended. I think they extended it for basically for "good" students. I had no intention to apply until i got the extension and I was like wth, and I did. Now i'm glad as I read about it, I really like Dartmouth!

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I think it's time to take off the 1/4 ones. Adding New College of Florida.

01/10 - Elon

01/10 - Georgetown University

01/10 - Occidental

01/10 - USC

01/14 - Appalachian State (2nd deadline, 3rd deadline 02/25)

01/15 - American

01/15 - American University

01/15 - Amherst College (some applicants?)

01/15 - Babson

01/15 - Bard

01/15 - Beloit

01/15 - Bentley

01/15 - Binghamton University

01/15 - Brandeis

01/15 - Bryn Mawr

01/15 - Bucknell

01/15 - Carleton College

01/15 - Case Western

01/15 - Clarkson

01/15 - Colgate University

01/15 - Colorado College

01/15 - Emory University

01/15 - Fordham

01/15 - George Washington

01/15 - Haverford

01/15 - Holy Cross

01/15 - James Madison University

01/15 - Kenyon

01/15 - Lawrence

01/15 - Loyola Marymount

01/15 - Macalester College

01/15 - McGill University

01/15 - Mount Holyoke

01/15 - Oberlin

01/15 - Puget Sound

01/15 - Reed

01/15 - Rhodes College

01/15 - Skidmore

01/15 - Smith

01/15 - St. Olaf College

01/15 - Swarthmore College (some applicants?)

01/15 - Tulane University

01/15 - UNC-Chapel Hill

01/15 - University of Miami (FL)

01/15 - Virginia Tech

01/15 - Washington University in St. Louis

01/15 - Wellesley

01/15 - Whitman

01/21 - Dartmouth College (some applicants?)

02/01 - Alfred University

02/01 - Centre College

02/01 - Cornell College

02/01 - Dickinson

02/01 - Evansville

02/01 - Franklin & Marshall

02/01 - Gettysburg

02/01 - Kalamazoo

02/01 - Lewis & Clark College

02/01 - Miami U of Ohio

02/01 - Michigan

02/01 - NC State

02/01 - Occidental

02/01 - Trinity (TX)

02/01 - Wisconsin-Madison

02/12 - MICA (priority, 03/01 regular)

02/15 - Allegheny

02/15 - Earlham

02/15 - Muhlenberg College

02/15 - New College of Florida (priority, regular 04/15)

02/15 - RISD

02/15 - Rollins College

02/15 - Ursinus

02/15 - Wooster

03/01 - Agnes Scott College

03/01 - Hanover

03/01 - Ohio Wesleyan

03/01 - Rose-Hulman (Engineering)

04/01 - Colorado School of Mines (priority, regular 05/01)

08/01 - Fort Lewis

rolling - AQUINAS MI

rolling - Gustavus Adolphus

rolling - Hendrix

rolling - IU - Bloomington

rolling - Illinois Wesleyan

rolling - Northern Michigan

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So there is a sampling of the kind of power a focus group of astute college applicants can exert. I hope you may have found something useful here. Better yet, go to the thread, jump in, and participate.

Happy post-New Year's applying!

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Don’t forget to check out all my admissions-related articles and book reviews at College Confidential.