Yay! You got into your ED school! Now what?
If you just found out that you have been accepted into your Early Decision school, CONGRATS! If you are wondering what to do next, this post is for you. Read on to make sure that you complete all the correct steps to solidify your enrollment and make your admissions process as smooth as possible.
Congratulations on being accepted to your Early Decision school! I’m sure you put a lot of thought into deciding if Early Decision would be the right choice for you and a lot of effort into perfecting your college application. And your hard work paid off!
While the most stressful part of your college admissions process may now be over, you’re not done just yet. There are some additional steps that you should be taking to ensure that your place at your new school is solidified and that your enrollment process goes smoothly.
6 things to do after being accepted to your Early Decision college:
Accept the Offer!
To confirm your place at your new school, you will need to accept the offer and submit a deposit to hold your place. This process will look different for each school, so follow the directions you have been given carefully. Make sure to read over your acceptance letter and any communication from the school closely to ensure that you don’t skip any important steps.
Withdraw Your Other Applications
Given the binding commitment of an Early Decision admission, it is important that you let other schools know that you will not be enrolling there. Even if you have not gotten your admissions decisions from other schools yet, you should withdraw your application. This can usually be done through the same portal where you can see your application status. In the case that there is a school that does not use this type of portal system, you can reach out to the admissions team via email. This is a very common process, and colleges know to be expecting some students to withdraw applications after ED decisions have been released, and you’ll typically fill out a survey or note about your reasoning for withdrawing your application.
Contact Your Counselor & Recommenders
Let your school, counselor, and teacher recommenders know the good news! What’s better, go a step further to thank these people again for the role that they played in your application process. Teachers and counselors love thank you notes!
Keep an Eye on Your Email
As you learned with the application process, there are a lot of small steps that go into applying to a college, and enrolling in a school will be no different. You have probably already been given instructions on how to create a student portal, and you will likely find more instructions there for next steps. As more tasks come up, the college will likely reach out via email or their portal, so keep a close watch on both to ensure that you are not missing important communications, like instructions for matching with a roommate or ranking your first year seminar options!
Continue to Work Hard at School
I know it’s weird to know that your next four years are already mapped out in front of you but you still have five months left of high school… Just because you have been accepted does not mean that you should sit back and relax for the rest of the year. Remember that your acceptance is contingent upon your continued strong academics, so your new school is expecting your second semester senior year grades to be just as bright and sparkly as those that came before it.
Celebrate!
This is something to be excited and proud of! I’m sure you worked so hard putting together the perfect application, studying for the SAT or SAT, and maintaining your academic profile over the past three years. Now you get to celebrate all that hard work and the path that it has put you on!
All your hard work paid off! Congratulations!
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