Black Friday: I think it is the most ridiculous thing to wait in line for hours to access a store that literally will continue to have sales until the holiday season is well over. But some people love getting a jump start on holiday shopping. (Although, I do recommend getting the shopping done in the next couple of weeks rather than the day before Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you may celebrate.)
If you have never experienced last-minute shopping, it starts off with driving around the parking lot of a shopping mall for 20 minutes just to find a space a 1/2 mile away from the mall itself. By the time you cross all the things off your list that are sold out and start substituting mediocre presents for your friends and family, you are already exhausted, hungry, and moody. You get to the check-out and, low and behold, there are ten people waiting ahead of you in line, all mad at the customer at the register who decided she wanted to purchase an item that didn’t have a tag. Now, everyone is waiting for the poor girl cleaning up all the dressing rooms to rush over to the counter, see the tagless item, and launch a 20 minute scavenger hunt in the store for the duplicate. Keep in mind that when you finally get through the line, you still have a mile hike back to the car. Sound exhausting? Something that you should avoid?
Holiday shopping is a lot like rolling admissions.
Yes, UMass Boston accepts First Year Freshman applications up until April 1st (February 1st for Nursing and Engineering programs), but I would not recommend waiting for the deadline. Since we are a school that offers rolling admissions up until the deadline, which means that when all of your required application material is received, we review the file and send you the decision. We do not wait until all the applications are received and then send out all decisions at once. But rather we process and review the completed files as they come in, which usually takes about six weeks.
Why not wait until the deadline?
Because almost every college that you apply to will be sending you their decision by April 1st and expecting you to decide where you will attend by May 1st. Therefore, sending in that last minute application while you panic and wait for our response so you can make a decision on what to do with your education for the next few years of your life is just as stressful as procrastinating with your holiday shopping. Whether you are in a rush to get your decision back or not, we will still process the application and review it in the order it is received, which means, if there is a long line ahead of you, well, then you just have to be patient and wait.
What do I recommend?
Start getting your holiday shopping and college applications done now. In our office, there is no Black Friday that kicks off the application season. But I will say that the freshman applications are finally starting to become ready for a decision now that the grades for the first marking period are available for many seniors. In fact, I just finished reviewing an application that was started less than two weeks ago!
So, if you want to beat the application rush and get your decision as soon as possible, APPLY NOW! You can submit your application online using our UMass Boston web application or the CommonApp, or you can even mail in a paper application to us. Then work with your guidance counselor to send in the rest of your documents (transcripts, essay, recommendations, test scores) either electronically or by mail to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
Once January hits, the majority of our applicants will be applying and the process will take a little longer to complete. If you wait until the deadline to apply… and you start panicking… well… I told you so.