College Extends Early Action Deadline for Applicants Affected by Storm

UPDATE: 4:09 a.m. November 3, 2011

Harvard has extended its deadline for students applying to the College under its early action admissions option in response to the severe snowstorm that struck the Northeast this past weekend.

Applicants affected by the storm—which left millions of residents of the region between New Jersey and Massachusetts without electricity—will now be able to submit applications until midnight on Nov. 4, the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid announced Tuesday in a statement on its website.

The Common Application website, which the majority of Harvard applicants use to submit their application materials, has remained open for counselors and teachers to submit recommendations for their students. The website asks students with deadline issues to contact individual institutions.

“We knew from past experience that this would be a concern and we were aware that other institutions had also extended their deadlines,” said Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson Jeff Neal in an email.

Neal added that the extension was common practice.

“We have, on occasion, extended deadlines in the past as a result of extenuating circumstances,” Neal said. “This extension is not at all unprecedented.”

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 could not be reached for comment.

Other Ivy League universities also extended their deadlines for early admission in response to the storm. Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania also asked applicants to submit applications by Nov. 4. Yale and Dartmouth extended their deadlines to Nov. 2 and Nov. 7, respectively.

Amy Sack, president of an admissions consulting firm based in Conn., said that her students’ application experiences were relatively unaffected by the storm as she had counseled them to submit their applications a week before the deadline.

“It wasn’t a problem. All of my students submitted over a week ago,” she said. “I always tell them, ‘You never know what’s going to happen.’”

Still, Sack said, some of her students decided to submit additional applications after hearing of deadline extensions.

Harvard’s early action admissions program—which returned this year after a five-year hiatus—gives students the option to apply to the College by Nov. 1 and receive a nonbinding decision in December.

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.