The first is when to apply, this fall. The second is where to go, once your offers are in. In between, your school and your family send much of your application. Pick a line to see how one student does it.
Students in grade 12 in 2026–27 usually apply in fall 2026 for 2027 entry.
This year at a glance
Does senior year still count?
Yes. Brown asks for first-semester grades even from students it admits early, and Stanford can withdraw an offer if grades drop significantly.
What matters most, in our view
Committing early only to a college whose price you've checked, essays that are entirely yours, and grades that hold up through June. When to apply ↓Your essays ↓
One thing this fall
File the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which opened September 23, 2026. Add the CSS Profile, a second aid form, if a college on your list asks for it. Aid forms ↓
Can wait, in our view
Unless you've committed through early decision, wait for every offer before choosing. Compare the real prices. Where to go ↓
Colleges can change their dates and rules during the year. Check each one's own page.
Torrance High School, California · Photo: Los Angeles / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized and cropped.
Start where you are
Three students, three starting points.
WIf your school has plenty of advanced coursesMeet Willa: history and writingShe sends eight applications by early January, none of which commits her to attend, and keeps every sentence of her essays her own.An illustrative student
She sends eight applications by early January, none of which commits her to attend, and keeps every sentence of her essays her own.
Both her parents work, and the family earns a little over $100,000 a year.
What to avoidPromising to attend a college early because friends say it raises the odds.
An illustrative exampleWilla’s grade 12, at a glance
Classes (advanced ones in green)
Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature
AP U.S. Government
AP Calculus AB
Spanish V Honors
Environmental Science
Newspaper
A school week, until January: about 8 hours a week
Managing editor5 h
Applications and essays3 h
8applications, all in by early January, and none that commits her to attend
1 readerfor her personal essay: her AP Language teacher, once
Grade 12 · Applying this year
Three choices, and why, Willa
She applies early only through early action, which doesn't commit her to attend. Her eight applications include her state's flagship university, two regional public universities, three private colleges that publish what families at each income pay, and two of the most selective colleges.
WhyHer family wants to compare aid offers side by side in spring. Early decision would mean agreeing to attend before seeing the aid offer. When to apply ↓
She sends a separate application to the flagship's honors college.
WhySome honors colleges, like Penn State's Schreyer Honors College and Arizona State's Barrett Honors College, have their own application.
Her AP Language teacher reads her personal essay once. Every sentence is hers.
WhyYale and Penn both say artificial intelligence (AI) can't write your application for you, and a teacher who knows her writing is the reader she needs. Your essays ↓
The rest of Willa’s grade 12
Grade 12 · Applying this year
Also this year
Tests. She retakes the SAT, a college admissions test, in late August, early enough to send the score for November deadlines. She'll take three AP exams in May.
The week. About five hours as the paper's managing editor.
In spring. She plans to compare each college's price after grants with the flagship's price, and to ask any college that counts loans as aid for its real yearly price.
Skipped. A third History Day paper, and any AI drafting.
Our view: what to take from Willa, an illustrative studentWilla's story doesn't predict a result. Learn from how she keeps her options open until she can compare real prices, and keeps her essays entirely her own.
OIf your school offers few advanced coursesMeet Owen: electronics and codeHe takes a third college course, retakes the ACT college admissions test, and his family asks each aid office how it counts the family store.An illustrative student
He takes a third college course, retakes the ACT college admissions test, and his family asks each aid office how it counts the family store.
One parent is a teacher, and the other owns the town's farm-supply store. Their income rises and falls with the farm economy.
What to avoidTreating one college's online price estimate as final when the family owns a business.
An illustrative exampleOwen’s grade 12, at a glance
Classes (advanced ones in green)
AP Calculus AB
AP English Literature
General Physics I (an online college course)
Spanish IV
Government and Economics
Statistics
A school week: about 9.5 hours a week
Science Olympiad build captain4 h
Family store4 h
A repair guide for his greenhouse controller1.5 h
$70for his ACT retake, at a test center 45 minutes away
5activities on his application, with the store listed as paid work
Grade 12 · Applying this year
Three choices, and why, Owen
He makes no early application that would commit him to attend.
WhyHis family's income rises and falls with the store's sales, so they want every aid offer in hand before choosing. When to apply ↓
His family asks each aid office how it counts the store.
WhyThe federal aid form leaves out a qualifying family business with 100 or fewer full-time or full-time-equivalent employees. Colleges that use the CSS Profile can still ask about it, and Harvard has its own form for businesses and farms. Your family's aid forms ↓
He takes General Physics I online, his third college course.
WhyIt's the most advanced physics course available to him, and colleges judge your courses against what your school offers. How that works, on Grade 10 ↓
The rest of Owen’s grade 12
Grade 12 · Applying this year
Also this year
Tests. He retakes the ACT in the fall, with a parent driving to the test center.
Essays. His mother reads every essay. A grammar check at the end is the only other help.
Applications. The flagship and its honors college, the regional public university, two private colleges with published aid levels, and a few highly selective colleges.
In spring. He plans to ask each aid office how it counted the store, and to compare each college's full cost after grants, without subtracting loans.
Our view: what to take from Owen, an illustrative studentOwen's story doesn't predict a result. Learn from how his family asks each college about the store instead of trusting one estimate, and how he stays free to compare every offer.
QIf money is tight, or you workMeet Quinn: leaning toward businessShe gives her counselor a page about her job and her family, and fee waivers cover her applications.An illustrative student
She gives her counselor a page about her job and her family, and fee waivers cover her applications.
Neither parent attended college. Household income is about $48,000 for a family of four.
What to avoidLeaving her job and her brother out of her application because they don't seem impressive.
An illustrative exampleQuinn’s grade 12, at a glance
Classes (advanced ones in green)
AP English Literature
AP Statistics
Precalculus
Environmental Science
Spanish IV (her school's top level)
Government and Economics
A business elective
A school week: about 15 hours a week
Restaurant10 h
Caring for her brother3 h
Business club treasurer2 h
$0for her applications, the CSS Profile, and her SAT retake, with fee waivers
3 ha week caring for her brother, down from 6
Grade 12 · Applying this year
Three choices, and why, Quinn
In September, she gives her counselor one page about her life outside school. It covers her job, her brother, and that her parents didn't attend college.
Tests. She retakes the SAT in late August, the second of her two free SATs with the fee waiver. She'll take two AP exams in May, at the reduced fee.
Early round. Early action only, so she can compare aid offers in spring.
Activities. The restaurant, ten hours a week. Caring for her brother, one afternoon a week since her mother's schedule changed. A second year as the business club's treasurer. Her activities list puts the restaurant first and her brother second.
Applications. The flagship and its honors college, a regional public university, and several selective private colleges that say families at her income pay nothing.
In spring. She plans to check which offers include loans, and whether each college's grants renew every year.
Our view: what to take from Quinn, an illustrative studentQuinn's story doesn't predict a result. Fee waivers and free help are made for students like her. Ask your counselor early, and make sure your counselor knows your story.
In these stories, each student's job follows the federal hour limits for their age. They get their state work permit through school, and a parent reads every application.
This fall: when to apply
Apply early decision only where you've checked the price. If you're admitted, you've agreed to go.
Colleges run three kinds of early round. Here's what each one asks of you.
Early decision
Binding. If you're admitted, you withdraw your other applications and attend, unless the aid isn't enough.
November 1, 2026
November 1, 2026
November 1, 2026
November 2
Restrictive early action
Not binding, but it limits where else you apply early. All four let you apply early to public universities, if not binding. Yale and Princeton call it single-choice early action.
November 1
Harvard: Hear from Harvard before applying to a private college that decides as applications arrive.
November 1
Yale: You can apply early to colleges that send decisions after January 1.
November 1
Princeton: Don't apply early to any other U.S. private college.
November 1
Stanford: Apply early decision elsewhere in January only if Stanford defers or denies you.
Early action
Not binding. You hear early and still have until spring to decide.
MITNovember 1
November 2, 2026Also offers early decision
Indiana UniversityNovember 1
No early round
One deadline for everyone: November 30, 2026, for every University of California campus.
November 30, 2026
November 30, 2026
Logos open each college's admissions page. Dates without a year are as listed there.
Who to askYour counselor and a parent, who sign the early decision agreement with you.
In our viewUse early decision only for a clear first choice whose online cost estimate, its net price calculator, shows a price you can pay. Otherwise, apply early action and compare offers in spring. Net price calculators, on Grade 10 →
Before you apply early decision
Duke tells families to check the price before applying early decision, because they can't compare offers later.
If the aid isn't enough, colleges like Duke release you from the agreement after you work with their aid office. If a college defers your application, it moves to the regular round. At Penn, that also releases you from the agreement.
Colleges often admit a larger share of early applicants. For fall 2025, Dartmouth admitted 21.6% of its early decision applicants and 6.0% of all its applicants. But early applicants are a different group, and Yale says it judges both rounds the same way.
QuestBridge, a free program that connects high-achieving students from lower-income families with partner colleges, closed its National College Match application on October 1, 2026. A match is binding at every partner college except MIT.
Some of the biggest merit scholarships close with the early round or need your school's nomination. Grade 11 lists them →
What three illustrative students did
WWilla. Early action only, so she stays free to compare offers.
OOwen. Nothing binding, so his family can compare every offer.
QQuinn. Early action only, so she can compare aid offers in spring.
The Dartmouth numbers show who was admitted, not how much applying early helps any one student. Some colleges haven't posted the year on their deadlines yet.
September to July
Your school and your family send much of your application.
Here's who sends what, month by month. The three cards below say what to do about each.
If you apply early, your family's aid forms are usually due in November too.
Applications and tests
School documents
Aid
Offers and replies
YouYour schoolYour family
September
You
Your school
Your family
FAFSA opens, Aid, your family, September
October
You
SAT and ACT, if retaking, Applications and tests, you, October
Your school
Your family
CSS Profile opens, Aid, your family, October
November
You
Early applications, Applications and tests, you, November
Your school
Transcript, school report, and letters, School documents, your school, November
Your family
Early aid deadlines, Aid, your family, November
December
You
Early results, Offers and replies, you, December
Your school
Your family
January
You
Regular applications, Applications and tests, you, January
Interviews, if invited, Applications and tests, you, January
Your school
Transcript, school report, and letters, School documents, your school, January
Your family
February
You
Your school
Midyear report, School documents, your school, February
Your family
Regular aid deadlines, Aid, your family, February
March
You
Decisions arrive, Offers and replies, you, March
Your school
Your family
State aid deadlines, Aid, your family, March
April
You
Compare offers, Offers and replies, you, April
Your school
Your family
May
You
Reply, and one deposit, Offers and replies, you, May
Your school
Your family
June and July
You
Your school
Final transcript, School documents, your school, June and July
Your family
Every date, month by month
Dates are for the 2026–27 school year.
September
The FAFSA opened September 23, 2026. ACT: September 19.
October
The CSS Profile opened October 1. University of California application submissions began the same day. QuestBridge's Match application closed October 1. SAT: October 3. ACT: October 17.
November
Early deadlines: Penn and Johns Hopkins, November 1; Duke and UChicago, November 2, 2026. Aid forms for early applicants: Brown, November 2; Johns Hopkins, November 15. SAT: November 7. University of California applications close November 30.
December
SAT: December 5. ACT: December 12. Johns Hopkins' early decision results: December 11. Most other early results come in mid-December.
January
Regular deadlines: Johns Hopkins, January 2; Duke and UChicago, January 4; Penn, January 5, 2027. Johns Hopkins' early decision replies are due January 15.
February
Brown's aid deadline for regular applicants: February 1, 2027. Midyear reports go out once first-semester grades are final.
March
California's state aid deadline: March 2, 2027. University of California decisions: March 1 to 31. Johns Hopkins' regular decisions: March 24.
April
Indiana's Frank O'Bannon and 21st Century Scholars FAFSA deadline is April 15, 2027.
May
May 1, 2027, is the University of California's reply date, and the usual one at other colleges. AP exams: May 3–7 and May 10–14.
June and July
Final transcripts. The University of California's deadline for sending yours is July 1, 2027.
Your essays and interviewsGive each college's extra essays as much time as your personal essay. Brown's four can total 800 words.800 wordsBrown's four extra essays, at most
Start the extra essays in early fall. Together they can be longer than your personal essay.
Every sentence should be yours, and each college sets its own rules on AI. Yale allows help with grammar and spelling, but not AI-written content. Caltech also rules out AI outlines and translations. Under the Common App's rules, passing off AI writing as your own is fraud.
Who to askOne adult who knows your writing, such as an English teacher, once you have a full draft.
For Brown, the extra essays can run longer than the personal essay.
650 wordsyour personal essay, for every Common App college
800 wordsBrown's four extra essays, at most
Our viewGet help with topic ideas at the start and grammar at the end. Every sentence in between should be yours, and you should be able to explain it.
What three illustrative students did
WWilla. Her AP Language teacher reads her personal essay once.
OOwen. His mother reads every essay, and a grammar check is the only other help.
QQuinn. Her AP Language teacher reads her personal essay twice.
Interviews
Say yes if a college invites you to interview. MIT and Georgetown officially rate the interview as “important.”
You don't book most interviews yourself. After you apply, someone from the college, usually a graduate, contacts you, mostly between November and February. You meet by video, phone, or in person. Once Georgetown sets up an interview for you, it's required. At Duke, you check a box on its application to ask for one.
In their yearly admissions reports, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford rate the interview a step lower, as “considered.” Each says your application is complete without one. Penn no longer offers interviews. It stopped in fall 2025. Johns Hopkins doesn't offer them. Brown and UChicago let you send a short video instead.
What it doesn’t show: These are authorship rules, not a measure of how much an essay counts. Follow each college's own policy. Interview ratings come from each college's latest Common Data Set; a rating doesn't tell you your chances.
Your counselor's documentsYour grades go to colleges again after you apply. Brown asks for a midyear report even from students it admits early.July 1, 2027University of California final transcript deadline
Your counselor sends your transcript and school report. Your teachers send their own letters.
After you apply, your school sends your first-semester grades and, after graduation, your final transcript. Stanford can withdraw an offer after a significant drop in grades.
If a college has you type in your own grades, as the University of California and Penn State do, copy them exactly from your transcript.
Who to askYour counselor, about fee waivers, the midyear report, and where your final transcript goes.
With each applicationYour transcript, the school's report, and your letters.
Midyear, often in FebruaryYour first-semester grades.
After graduationYour final transcript. The University of California's deadline for sending it is July 1, 2027.
Check each college's own list of what it needs, and when.
Our viewGive your counselor a one-page summary of what they might not know, such as a job, family duties, or a hard year.
What three illustrative students did
WWilla. In December, she checks each college's applicant page to see that her school's documents arrived.
OOwen. In September, he asks his physics and English teachers to send their letters before his November deadlines.
QQuinn. In September, she gives her counselor her one-page summary and asks for the fee waiver.
Your right to see your letters (the FERPA waiver)
Waive your right to see your letters. The Common App says waiving it tells colleges the letters are candid.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the federal privacy law that would let you read your letters after you enroll. Some teachers won't write unless you waive it.
What it doesn’t show: Requirements and senders vary by college. MIT, for example, also asks you to fill in its own February update form.
Your family's aid formsFile the aid forms this fall. Both use your family's 2025 taxes, so there's nothing to wait for.2025The tax year both aid forms use
Many private colleges use the CSS Profile for their own grants, alongside the federal aid form.
If you apply early, file early too. Brown's early aid deadline is November 2, 2026, and Johns Hopkins' deadline is November 15, 2026. Some state grants have their own deadlines: California's deadline is March 2, 2027.
If your family owns a business or farm, the FAFSA leaves out a qualifying family business with 100 or fewer full-time or full-time-equivalent employees and the farm you live on. Colleges that use the CSS Profile may still ask about them, and Harvard has its own form.
Who to askYour parents, who each need a StudentAid.gov account if the FAFSA asks for their information.
File both by the earliest aid deadline on your list.
Aid form
FAFSA
CSS Profile
Who uses it
Every college that offers federal aid, and many states
Colleges such as Harvard, Duke, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins, for their own grants
Opened
September 23, 2026
October 1, 2026
Cost
Free, at StudentAid.gov
$25 for the first college and $16 for each one after. Free for U.S. students when the family's adjusted gross income, a line on its tax return, is $100,000 or less.
Our viewFile the FAFSA this fall, and the CSS Profile if a college on your list uses it, even if you're applying in January. Filing commits you to nothing.
What it doesn’t show: Leaving the business's value off the federal form doesn't leave out its income. Each college can calculate its own aid differently. Check the federal form's rules on family ownership and how to count part-time employees.
This spring: where to go
Find the real price: the full cost minus grants and scholarships.
A 2022 federal review found nine in ten aid offers left it out or understated it. Here's one offer, read line by line.
An illustrative offer
This offer says you owe $21,500. The real yearly price is $42,000.
Cost of attendance: tuition and fees, housing and food, books, travel, and personal costs
$90,000The full year
College grant
$48,000Lowers the price
Federal student loan
$5,500You borrow it. It's the federal limit for a first-year student who reports parents' income on the FAFSA.
Parent PLUS loan
$12,000A federal loan in your parents' names. They repay it.
Federal Work-Study
$3,000You earn it through a qualifying job during the year.
What the offer says you owe
$21,500After the loans and work-study are counted as aid
The real yearly price
$42,000The full cost minus the grant
Loans are borrowed and work-study is earned, so neither lowers the price.
In our viewWrite each college's real yearly price side by side. Then choose among the ones your family can pay without stretching.
If the offer isn't enough
Ask the aid office for a review if your family's finances have changed, and send documents.
More on if the offer isn't enough
MIT says it doesn't match other colleges' offers. Aid offices can adjust aid for changes such as a lost job or large medical bills. Cornell says documents matter more than persuasion. If your appeal is still open near your reply date, ask the college for more time.
Pay one deposit, at one college. May 1, 2027, is the usual reply date, but early decision replies are due sooner.
More on one deposit
Johns Hopkins' first-round early decision reply deadline is January 15, 2027. Kenyon warns that it may withdraw an offer from a student who deposits at more than one college. If a waitlist offer comes later, tell your first college you won't be coming.
Ask each college whether its grants renew every year, and on what conditions.
The 2022 federal review looked at 2021–22 offers from 176 colleges, so it describes offers then, not every offer today. From July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS borrowers can borrow up to $20,000 a year, and $65,000 in all, for each student. The limit is shared across parents. The waitlist counts are history, not a forecast. May 1 isn't every applicant's deadline.
In our view
What grade 12 doesn't need.
L
Skip
Do this instead
Early decision at a college whose price you haven't checked
Run its net price calculator first. Early action keeps you free to compare.
Paying to apply for scholarships
The Federal Trade Commission's advice: never pay to apply for a scholarship.
AI-written sentences in your essays
Get help only with topic ideas and grammar, and write every sentence yourself.
A second deposit "just in case"
One deposit. If a waitlist offer comes later, withdraw from the first college.
November 1, 2026
November 1, 2026
November 1, 2026
November 2
November 1
November 1
November 1
November 1
MITNovember 1
November 2, 2026Also offers early decision
Indiana UniversityNovember 1
November 30, 2026
November 30, 2026