U-Chicago's optional early deadline

[aMoreBeautifulQuestion]

If you look at "announcements" on this page (http://socialscience...ive/admissions/), you'll see that the University of Chicago has an optional early deadline of November 15th (the "real" deadline is December 10th) for its Social Sciences Division.

Yes, they waive the application fee for these early apps, but I'm sure they're not doing it to help us out. Do you think their committee is going to read a first round of apps prior to the "real" deadline? And, if so, do you think it could help to be a part of that first reading?

On the one hand, you demonstrate how excited you are about their program to submit so early and you'll be part of a smaller pool of applicants; but on the other hand, they will be reading more carefully and might be more critical, and of course, there's the obvious benefit of having an extra month to polish everything if you aren't aiming for this early deadline.

Please weigh in! What do you think? What would you do/are you doing? Thanks in advance!

[Happy to be here]

I noticed that Duke is doing something similar. There is an early date in the middle of November where you can apply for $65, but if you apply at the normal deadline, sometime in December, it's $75. What is this? It's like some kind of "act now" special on QVC. For some reason, I hate it.

[Bukharan]

Perhaps I am naive but I believe that it cannot really hurt us if we apply early. It's a great opportunity to have a fee waived/reduced somewhere when you are paying hundreds of dollars on other applications.

I wish Chicago specified whether references should be submitted online by 15 November as well?