As fall has already begun this year, colleges around the country have been opening up applications for fall 2025. It’s a stressful period for seniors as many have most likely procrastinated the process or haven’t even started at all, which isn’t ideal as college applications are notorious for being lengthy and tedious to complete. In general, each college has different application periods, but if certain ones are part of a system, the application period for those colleges will be relatively similar.
For example, University of California schools (UCs) are all part of one big system as they’re all public 4-year institutions that follow similar formats even if each one has their own variety of degrees, acceptance rates, and specialities offered, which can also be said about California State University schools (CSUs) and their own shared system too. Because of this, applying to UCs and CSUs can be quite simple as the UC and CSU systems make it possible for the same application for a UC school to be used for all UC campuses and the same application for a CSU school to be used for all CSU campuses.
Nonetheless, each college has their own kinds of applications available, which include early action, early decision, and regular decision. Early action and regular decision both act as a non-binding entrance plan, where students receive an early response to their application but do not have to commit to the college until the normal reply date of May 1 in early action and students admit to a college through it and are not committed to attending it in regular decision. On the contrary, early decision acts as a binding entrance plan, where a student who is accepted as an early decision applicant must attend the college.
Here is a timeline of deadlines for some UC schools, CSU schools, ivy league schools, and out-of-state schools, each one having their own kinds of applications available due at differing dates.