Emergency--late submission

JHS
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:39:48 +0000

Believe it or not, most colleges are in the business of encouraging qualified students to apply, and considering those applications on the merits. After all, we’re talking about a potential relationship expected to span half a century or more and involves hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions.

Also, after January 1, it takes a couple weeks just to open the mail and figure out which files stuff goes in.

So do I expect them to be all hard-assed about the postmark on a document coming from a third party? No I do not. They need deadlines, or else the application process would never end, but there’s no reason for them to throw anyone’s application out arbitrarily.

That’s as a general matter. As for Chicago – back before they used the Common App, their attitude towards the basic application submission deadline was the “Baker Island rule”: As long as it was [the deadline date] ANYWHERE in the world, they would consider an electronic application timely. It was called the Baker Island rule because Baker Island sits just east of the International Date Line, and is pretty much the last place on Earth where it’s still today when it’s tomorrow everywhere else. Progress – in the form of the Common App’s nazi-like software, which disables submissions at midnight in the applicable time zone – has killed the Baker Island rule, but not the values it reflected.

I bet the Admissions website says something about this. UChicagoPSAC can probably also say something comforting, too.

I would do your best to get everything in as quickly as possible, but don’t fail to apply because that is January 4, not January 2.