MBA Admissions Tip: Early Decision Deadlines
One option to explore in the application process is early decision or early action. You may remember this strategy from your undergraduate admissions process – you apply before the regular deadline, receive notification early, and if accepted secure your place with a deposit. This can be a great strategy because the admissions committee will see your profile and essays before reviewing regular decision applicants. Two schools that offer this are Columbia and Tuck.
Columbia will begin reviewing Early Decision applications on August 17, 2007, and the final deadline for Early Decision is October 10, 2007. Columbia reviews applications on a rolling basis; you will receive notification of their decision within 10 weeks of submitting your application. If accepted to Columbia in the Early Decision round, you must withdraw applications and decline offers of admissions from any other schools and submit a non-refundable $5,000 deposit to reserve your space in the class. You can read all of the details on Columbia’s Early Decision here.
The Tuck Early Action option is sightly different. While Tuck has not posted the Early Action deadline for this year, last year applications were due in mid-October and decisions were sent by mid-December. Tuck allows accepted Early Action applicants to wait until early January before submitting their non-refundable deposit ($3,500 last year). Tuck views their offer as nonbinding because applicants can see the results of other first round applications in early January before committing to Tuck with the deposit. You can read all of the details on Tuck‘s Early Action here.
These are just two examples. Please check your schools of interest to see if they offer any early decision options.
