For many high school seniors, early December feels like a strange in-between season. You’ve submitted your Early Action or Early Decision applications, winter break is around the corner, and part of you wants to finally exhale after months of hard work. Another part might be anxiously refreshing your inbox, waiting for results.
But don’t snooze on December – it is one of the most valuable months in the entire college application process. Students who maximize this window consistently submit stronger Regular Decision applications and feel far less stressed in January.
Here are some of our pointers on how to use your December strategically and confidently.
Start (or continue!) your regular decision applications now.
One of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen seniors make is waiting for early results before starting Regular Decision applications. If you wait until mid-December or later, you’re suddenly racing the clock—right when holidays, family obligations, and midterms hit. Even worse, if early results don’t go your way, you’ll be scrambling under emotional stress.
Instead:
- Draft your personal statement and supplemental essays now, even if you’re hoping for an ED acceptance.
- Create a checklist for each RD school—supplements, optional essays, portfolios, honors programs, and scholarships.
- Update your Common Application with any new achievements, updates to your activities list, grades, testing, etc., that you may have accomplished since submitting your Early applications.
If you end up being accepted early? Fantastic—you’ll celebrate and hit “withdraw.” But if not, you will have saved yourself weeks of pressure.
Block out your December calendar intentionally
Treat December like a short strategic season. Sit down with a weekly calendar and identify:
- Winter break dates: Your goal should be to finish at least 80% of your apps before break begins so you’re not writing essays on an airplane, in a hotel, or between family events.
- Midterm or final exam weeks: During these weeks, protect your academic performance. GPA still matters for mid-year reports, so don’t plan major essay-writing days when you should instead be finishing a major assignment or studying for an exam.
- Recommendation, transcript, and counselor deadlines: Your school office is likely to close for two weeks. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to add all of your regular decision schools to Naviance or Scoir, and notify your guidance counselor of all the schools you intend on applying to for Regular decision. In other words, request everything now.
List out your “hidden” tasks
December is the perfect time to tackle tasks that students tend to underestimate:
- Scholarship Applications (many are due in December/January)
- Portfolio Prep (for arts, architecture, design, and business/innovation programs)
- Additional information or optional essays
- Honors college essays
- Financial aid documents (FAFSA, CSS Profile, and institutional forms)
- Alumni interview prep (some RD schools offer interviews through January)
Knocking out these items now give you a major advantage going into January!
Build a writing system
Strong essays are rarely written in one sitting. Use this month to establish a realistic system:
- Pick two or three “writing days” each week.
- Draft messy, revise carefully, and polish ruthlessly.
- Recycle themes—but never copy/paste—across schools.
Your goal should be to have most of your supplemental essays drafted before break.
Prepare emotionally for early results
Early decisions come with big emotions: excitement, relief, disappointment, or uncertainty. These are all normal! No matter what comes in December, your preparation ensures you stay grounded and ready.
By January, the seniors who used December wisely tend to feel calm and prepared, while others are realizing they have 20+ essays left and two weeks to do them. You may not have control over early results, but you DO have complete control over how you use this month!
Your future self will thank you for investing the time and effort now, so start early, plan ahead, and take charge of this important month!
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