successful junior year

At this time of year, many students who do not yet know where they will attend college begin panicking. Take a note from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC.

Whether you’ve already applied to your top choice schools and haven’t yet received that coveted acceptance letter or you dropped the ball and haven’t yet submitted college applications, fear not. Although the application deadlines for most top ranked schools have already passed, there are many good four-year colleges still accepting applications.

Let’s start with some important resources:

Big Future: The College Board’s college search tool allows you to arrange results by application deadline so that you can find colleges that are still accepting applications.

The Common App: The Common App’s search tool allows you to narrow your choices by application deadline so that the search will only return results for schools with deadlines after a certain date.

Here is a sampling of schools that are still accepting applications:

February 15:

College of the Ozarks
Washington University in St. Louis
Pace University
University of North Carolina, Asheville

April 1:

SUNY New Paltz
University of Massachusetts, Boston

April 15:

Louisiana State University

May 1:

University of Arizona
Clemson University

In addition to schools with late application deadlines, there are schools that utilize a rolling admission process. Rolling admission is like first come, first serve – the school will continue to review applications until the freshman class is full. Colleges that use a rolling admission process include:

Bradley University
Citadel Military College of South Carolina
Michigan State University
Pennsylvania State University
Arizona State University
Marymount University
Hofstra University
Purdue University
Stony Brook University

Don’t wait until the last minute to start these applications! Remember that getting transcripts, test score reports, and other documentation can take some time.