Procrastinators do need deadlines. It is better to have the peace of mind that something has been submitted on time or ahead of schedule.
But still, there is that little tickle of “well, maybe he SHOULD apply to Vandy?” 
That’s probably the point.
I, too, struggle to see education in the paradigm of a business but that’s exactly what it is.
Yes it is a business. And there are honest, well run businesses and corrupt ones.
We faculty members used to believe that higher education was not a business. Our eyes were opened in 2008. Now nothing surprises me.
What’s “corrupt” about direct marketing and soliciting apps? Let’s not jump the shark here.
@carolinamom2boys , I don’t get caught up too much with the merit aid for OOS students thing since UVa really is primarily need based ( the 30 or so Jefferson Scholars are funded by a private foundation outside the school) and VT seems to throw a few thousand occasionally to an OOS student that needs financial help but there doesn’t seem to be major merit there either in general for OOS students. . I know Wm & M has Monroe Scholars for top students but not sure how that is funded and we never considered Wm & M. . I always viewed an instate admission as a subsidy to an extent and was happy (well, not happy 
) to pay instate prices for a wonderful education and experience, , even if full pay.
Uh, no. My #1 kid even had schools writing to ask him to reconsider when he withdrew from them after an ED admission.
For all the STEM degree chasing on CC, the lowly Marketing major (who even the Accounting and Finance majors look down upon) wins in the end. They understand that some people buy their sheets at WalMart, some buy them at Penney’s, some buy them at Neimans and some buy them on Amazon. The people who buy their sheets at Walmart think the people who shop at Neiman’s are getting ripped off. The people who buy their sheets at Neiman’s think their sheets must be better because very few people get to buy those sheets. All the Marketing person cares about is that everyone needs sheets.
To those who believe marketing for more applications only impacts acceptance rate…
Think about all the other usnwr Categories it also improves.
You don’t just use USNWR. You also issue press releases about applications being at an all time high-
But I am not a marketing person- I am a money person- $70 application fee times 15,000 applications is more than a million dollars. Of course, I have to subtract fee waivers and there are those extra work study wages I’ll need to pay to sift through the extra applications unless I can come up with a computer algorithm that sorts through them faster.
Most of the top schools routinely tout their application numbers. W & M is not unique in that.
All the above is true - it’s just marketing. Unis are a business first and foremost and it always surprises me when people think they are “above all that.” Fill the seats and fill the beds and hopefully do it with the least amount of expense and achieve it with the highest caliber of customers to make the staff and coaches happy. Whether it is pandering from applications from just about everyone or tuition discounting – carefully worded as “merit based scholarship” --it’s just marketing. Today’s kids and their parents should ‘get that’ better than any generation prior…this is the generation of kids and parents that has been “marketed too” since they were in diapers.
I don’t think the schools are above all that I don’t think? I just wonder if the definition of deadline is changing before our eyes . . . It does seem, though, that the deadline is being extended for kids that have started an application, mostly? I don’t have a problem with that. Rather like it, in fact . . . seems nice to give you one last shot at finishing an app – when I’m not in cynical mode, and thinking it’s all about keeping that low acceptance rate or moving the needle to make it even lower. This time around, my DD applied mostly to less selective (by numbers anyway) schools. It is interesting that a couple of her schools acceptance rates have swung wildly from around 40% acceptance rate a few years ago to 70/80% now. I try not to buy into the lower number means better school, but DD definitely is more impressed by schools with a lower acceptance rate. It pops right up on Google, too, when you google a schools name. It would seem to be a meaningful statistic to many, whether it should be or not . . .
@ClarinetDad16 - I think someone had posted somewhere that Uchicago used to have acceptance rate in the 40s before they turn up the heat on their marketing champion but I am not if that is true.
agree with #29
Moving to the Common Application raises the application rates for lots of schools.
I didn’t read all posts here. When my son was applying back in 2011/2012, he got multiple emails from Johns Hopkins, because he started an application but never finished it. They gave him an extra couple of weeks after their deadline to complete it, but he never did. My wallets thanks him, but I do sometimes wonder “what if…”
In my experience, various schools including Datrmouth have solicited late applications from URM candidates.
I was really suprised at how needy and even downright creepy some schools, even more prestigious ones, sounded in their emails/brochures.
I wish schools would set deadlines after Jan 1, like Jan 15. It is so difficult to have the deadlines during holidays as GC are not available, sometimes students are away and trying to file from a family vacation cabin. Yes, I know they can do it early (come on, who is going to do that!), Jan 1 is a holiday, most schools are closed for 2 weeks just before that deadline. Why not just have the deadline a little later, but have it be a real deadline? Do all the schools open tomorrow morning and give out the apps for review? Do they need every one of these next 10 or 15 days (clearly not at W&M or some of the other schools that have extended deadlines)?
@twoinanddone I thought Jan 5 and 15 deadlines last year were great–until DD called me crying from school last year on Fri. Jan 16. She was feeling sick and overwhelmed and instead of hitting submit on the night of the 15th, she fell fast asleep. There were 3 schools with that deadline, 1 of which was high on her list.
I immediately called the schools and 2 of them said so sad, too bad, no deadline extension was possible. (I was actually secretly relieved since both of those schools felt like not a good fit) But the admissions office at the third, a top LAC, was very nice and accommodating, and told me that she could have until Monday Jan. 19 to apply. She was accepted there with good merit aid, made an overnight visit, fell in love and is now happily attending.
I think January 1st is a ridiculous deadline. The schools are all on break so they aren’t reading the applications. Why not choose the Sunday before kids go back to school – January 3rd or even January 10th to give the high school college counselors a chance to look over the supplements that were written over winter break. I also find the extension of deadlines to be problematic as I think it gives kids a false impression that deadlines are flexible when many deadlines in real life are not – e.g., April 15th or October 15th for taxes, filing deadlines for court papers.