Sixty days from now, most of the applications will be submitted and the early decisions will be arriving. What happens between now and then is dense but not complicated. Five things decide it.
1. Lock the early plan this week
Which colleges have Nov 1 deadlines, which have Nov 15, and whether any of them is an Early Decision. If ED is on the table, the net price calculator gets run with real numbers and the family answers one question: would we deposit without hesitation at that price? Yes means ED. Anything else means Early Action where it’s offered and Regular Decision elsewhere.
Once decided, write the deadlines down in one place and don’t revisit the decision.
2. Finish the personal statement by Oct 22
Not “mostly done.” Done. One essay, 650 words, that lets a stranger see one true thing about the student. If it’s still being written on Oct 30, every supplement suffers and the student submits something they’ll wish they hadn’t. If the draft is genuinely not there yet, Regular Decision with a better essay is a legitimate choice — a rushed early application isn’t a free option.
3. Submit early applications by Oct 29
Three days of slack before Nov 1. Review each application in full, confirm the right essay is attached to the right college, submit, screenshot the confirmation. Then start the Friday portal check: each college’s applicant portal says what’s missing, and a missing transcript found in early November is a two-minute fix.
4. Write the Regular Decision supplements before Thanksgiving
Assume the early schools say no or defer, and plan accordingly. List every remaining college and its supplements. “Why us” essays first — one specific thing about the student, one specific thing about that college, and what the student would do with it. Two per week through November gets everything drafted before December, which means December is for proofreading and submitting, not writing.
5. File the financial aid forms now
The CSS Profile is open for colleges that require it; the FAFSA is open. Both can be done in one sitting each with FSA IDs set up in advance and last year’s tax return on the table. Early-application colleges often want them for early aid estimates, and Pennsylvania’s state grant has its own deadline that’s easy to forget by spring. There’s no advantage to waiting.
What’s not on the list
Rewriting the activities list for the fourth time. Adding a tenth college because a friend did. Emailing admissions offices to “show interest.” Reading other families’ results online. None of it moves the outcome, and all of it costs the hours the five things above need.
The parent’s part
The calendar on the refrigerator. The portal check question on Fridays. The fee payments. The money conversation, if it hasn’t happened. And then — this is the hard one — stepping back from the essays and letting them sound like your kid.
Sixty days. Five things. It’s a lot, but it isn’t a mystery, and it’s enough.
By Jeff Thompson, Phortex Campus · October 13, 2026 · ← All posts