Amnesty

In a strange move, Michigan admission committee has pushed back deadlines for R1 by a week for people who have applications pending in the Michigan system. Atleast that is what some have been reporting on the Business week forum. I am not too happy with this development and the main reason for this lies in the fact that they did not do it soon enough. If they wanted to extend the deadline for legitimate reasons, they should have leveled the playing field by offering it to *ALL* R1 applicants, BEFORE we hit the submit button, not after. This action seems more of an after thought in which they realized that the number of applicants was not too high so they decided to increase the pool by extending the deadline.

If this was not the case the Michigan needs to clarify its position on extensions. The main reason I am not very happy with this move is that

a. This sort of amnesty is unfair to the people who have worked pretty hard to meet the deadline that no longer exists.
b. Procrastinators are rewarded for their lack of effort. (Though I rank in this lot, I am not to enamored with the trait)
c. It might push the decision dates by a week, which will suck.
d. In a small way it increases the competition. Though at most times it shouldn't matter, the person who hit R1 but missed out on the last seat to someone who had an extra week to fine tune their essay, will be pretty crushed.

Well there is nothing I can do about this decision other than vent, which I have, and now I feel a lot better.