Are early applications prefered?

[Moose#@1%$]

Has anyone ever heard or knows whether grad applications that are submitted earlier are preferred over ones that are not? I ask because I had an interesting email correspondence with a department admin at a school and the language made it seem like earlier applications have a leg up. I don't know though, so i thought I ask the grad cafe community. Don't ask me the school name or admin name, I'm obviously not going to put any department or individual on the spot because of the "feelings" that I got from reading an email. That would be pretty unfair and crappy. lol

 

[Prose]

never heard this, plus I just highly doubt it for a number of reasons

[SexandtheHaecceity]

I don't think so. For contrast, 99% of law schools use rolling admissions and their admissions process looks very different. It makes sense to start considering applicants early when you have a few hundred seats to fill. If you're filling 4-8 slots, however, you want to be sure you're handing them out to the best applicants which would require a look at the entire pool. 

[Moose#@1%$]

1 hour ago, SexandtheHaecceity said:

I don't think so. For contrast, 99% of law schools use rolling admissions and their admissions process looks very different. It makes sense to start considering applicants early when you have a few hundred seats to fill. If you're filling 4-8 slots, however, you want to be sure you're handing them out to the best applicants which would require a look at the entire pool. 

hmm yea this makes sense.

[Moose#@1%$]

2 hours ago, Prose said:

never heard this, plus I just highly doubt it for a number of reasons

I agree but what are these reasons?

[Kantattheairport]

13 hours ago, Moose#@1%$ said:

Has anyone ever heard or knows whether grad applications that are submitted earlier are preferred over ones that are not? I ask because I had an interesting email correspondence with a department admin at a school and the language made it seem like earlier applications have a leg up. I don't know though, so i thought I ask the grad cafe community. Don't ask me the school name or admin name, I'm obviously not going to put any department or individual on the spot because of the "feelings" that I got from reading an email. That would be pretty unfair and crappy. lol

 

My impression is that it depends. There are certain departments that encourage earlier applications, or for applicants to apply as early as possible - though I doubt the preference makes a huge difference to the outcome. Or, perhaps, I doubt there's a consciously applied difference: it may well make an unintended difference if committees start reviewing early applications earlier (it possible that their energy and attention begins to diminish over time)…

Then on the other hand, there are other places like NYU that make it explicit that they'll only begin reviewing after the deadline and that applying early has no effect.

 

[Moose#@1%$]

8 hours ago, Kantattheairport said:

it may well make an unintended difference if committees start reviewing early applications earlier (it possible that their energy and attention begins to diminish over time)… 

Yea this is more of what I was getting at. Thanks for saying it properly.. lol.. I feel like if there is a difference then it is unintended. Unfortunately, intended or unintended it won't make a difference for the applicant. Hopefully, there isn't any, I'm just curious because 2-3 of my applicants were submitted on the day of or the day before. 

[Kantattheairport]

9 hours ago, Moose#@1%$ said:

Yea this is more of what I was getting at. Thanks for saying it properly.. lol.. I feel like if there is a difference then it is unintended. Unfortunately, intended or unintended it won't make a difference for the applicant. Hopefully, there isn't any, I'm just curious because 2-3 of my applicants were submitted on the day of or the day before. 

Yeah, I don't think it's worth worrying too much about that, there are too many factors that go into these unintended consequences (how people on the committee are feeling that day, whether or not they've had their morning coffee, etc) and they're all outside of our control!