Most early admission due dates are in November. Regular decision due dates are spread from January to February. Check your prospective colleges’ websites to see the dates. At colleges with rolling admissions, submitting an application as early as possible is the best.

Everything has to be there by the due date (pay attention to whether everything has to be postmarked by the due date or whether it actually has to be there at the due date). Your guidance counselor should be the one who mails the transcript. From experience, I can tell you that you might want to tell her/him that it is due a few days earlier than it is due. My guidance counselor missed one of my deadlines (Jan. 15, which was the day it was supposed to be postmarked) because the deadline happened to be a holiday, so she mailed it the next day. I don’t know how I even got into that college, except for the fact that it was my counselor’s mistake.

As soon as the summer starts!