College D-Day

Today, May 1st, is for many colleges and universities, what I call D-Day, where "D' stands for "deposit."

High school seniors have evaluated their college acceptances and decide (with postmarked response forms and their deposits) where they plan to spend the next 4 years of their lives.

I know of students who have woken up on May 1, in years past, to finally make the college decision that morning  and I know of students this year who cannot decide and will be taking a gap year, which means that they will not be attending college next year.

With several additional colleges this year allowing for early action, it will be very interesting to see the "yields." In other words, what  percentage of those accepted at a given college will actually matriculate?

Personally, I know of students accepted Early Action to Yale and to Harvard, who still kept on applying after getting in to such schools. I guess some are never satisfied.

It was an extremely competitive year for college acceptances and the competition for admittance into US colleges and universities is now global plus with the Common Application more students are applying to many colleges (some of which they have not even visited).


The shuffling will begin soon, and it will be interesting to see how deep certain colleges will have to go down their waiting lists.

In the meantime, I wish the college admissions officers and the financial aid officers lots of luck.The same goes for the high school seniors and their families.

It has been a long road for many with college visits, lengthy college applications, interviews, and then the waiting for the college acceptance decisions followed by second college visits and numerous discussions with family members and maybe even friends.

Congrats to all those who have weathered this long process and best of luck after your high school graduations.

Before you know it, you will also be holding college diplomas so enjoy college  -- those four years are truly transformative and the hard work you do then pays off.

Remember, it is the work that you do and who you are that ultimately makes for being successful in life.