Rolling basis schools

[dandelion0627]

Hi, I am applying for PhD in biomedial engineering at Cornell U and Tufts U.

Their admissions are rolling basis, and the official deadline is 01/15/2015.

 

Within what range of submitting date will be consider as relatively early given that deadline?

 

My complex is that I have extremely heavy load near the end of this semester, and have little time to work on my statement of purpose.

Even though I have a SOP ready for other schools and would only need to tailor it for these two programs, I still feel like editing more before submitting. That means I probably won't be working on applications to these two schools until after the final exams on 20th.

 

Would that be late considering a rolling admission?

 

Thank you in advance!

[12345678900987654321]

Wednesday (tomorrow) is the last day my committee will be reviewing applications until after Jan 15th deadline. Next week is finals week and after that we're closed until January. 

 

Rolling admission just basically means that the review/admit as applications as they come in instead of waiting until after a specified date. Unless those two schools do something different, there really isn't any difference in submitting early vs. waiting until Jan.

[gliaful]

I hear contradictory ideas about applying early to rolling admissions programs. Applying early might put your application in line next to competitive applicants (who may apply early). I think around December 20th would still be early-ish (nearly a month before the deadline), but like GradSecretary said, some schools take a break from reviewing applications for the holidays.

 

I wouldn't stress about it and just apply in your own time. It would be better to wait and feel satisfied with your SOP than to hurry and submit something less than your best work.