Auburn has 4 rounds - the first deadline is Sept 15. They are not a rolling admission school like Bama is.
Housing does not open until Nov. you get your time slot end October if you apply by Sept 15th.
So you needn’t rush. You will have ample opportunity.
Auburn is a Common App school. They have their own app too if you’d rather use that. Common App has an essay but each school sets its own parameters. So if Auburn doesn’t require one, then you won’t need one if you choose to use Common App. The reason to use Common vs the Auburn app is if you plan other apps that use Common. It saves you from repetitive work.
If your student is at their strongest - meaning you don’t want to wait for first semester grades or another test score, apply by Sept 15 and you’ll be fine - yes for housing.
They are using FUUD tactics to unnecessarily panic you. To many, that’s good, classic marketing.
Listen to the tour guide and @thumper1 gave you a solid timeline (per your request) based on her first hand experience.
No faceless strangers advice should be followed at the expense of the advice of someone representing the actual school in my opinion. At a minimum check back with a school rep for clarity.
Step 1: Activate your Auburn email to receive your housing application timeslot
Students will receive a timeslot to apply for housing once they have been accepted to the university. Timeslots will be sent to students’ Auburn email account and are randomly assigned to accepted students. Timeslots are generated via a lottery system and randomly assigned after each admissions acceptance round. Students can reference the Application Timeslot Notifications chart below for when to expect their timeslot email.
Application Timeslot Notifications
Admissions Decision Round
Housing Application Timeslot Notification
Early Action — Round 1 (October)
Late October
Early Action — Round 2 (November)
Early December
Early Action — Round 3 (December)
Early January
Early Action — Round 4 (February)
Late February
Regular — Round 1 (March)
Late March
As our office receives acceptances from Admissions, Housing Application Timeslots will be issued on a weekly basis.
It is not completely clear to me from the above text whether timeslots are assigned randomly on a weekly basis, or monthly basis (by “round”), or if the lottery system randomly assigns equally good timeslots throughout the whole process. However even if it is weekly and the best timeslots are assigned in the first week, the student would still have a whole week to submit their application. So I wouldn’t worry about minutes.
Maybe the tour guide was talking about “minutes” with regard to actually applying for housing within your assigned timeslot.
