A senior at a Catholic high school in Queens and a senior at a public high school in the Bronx can both apply to Hunter College this fall without paying a fee. The Bronx student's free window has been open since Sept. 15, while the Queens student's does not open until Thursday, Oct. 15. That gap is written into the City University of New York's rules. It is one of several inconsistent gaps in the 2026 College Application Initiative, which Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Oct. 13 with fee waivers at SUNY, CUNY and dozens of private campuses.

For most seniors the calendar comes down to three dates. CUNY waives its application fee through Nov. 16 for every New York high school senior, and SUNY waives fees from Oct. 19 through Nov. 2. A cluster of private colleges that includes Adelphi, Hofstra, RIT and The New School stops waiving on Oct. 31, two days before the SUNY window shuts. The governor's office puts a typical application fee at $50 to $90, so a list of eight schools would cost a family $400 to $720.

Last year students filed more than 300,000 applications through the initiative and saved more than $15 million in fees, according to the state. This year more than 700 high schools have registered to give seniors class time and counselor help to finish at least one application. The program is in its 13th year and its fourth with fee waivers, and for the first time it runs across October and November rather than a single month. "No student should have to weigh the cost of an application against their dream of attending college," said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.

Who gets the longest CUNY window

CUNY's two tracks end on the same day, Nov. 16. Seniors in New York City public high schools started on Sept. 15 and get 63 days. Everyone else in the state, including students at private and religious schools inside the five boroughs, starts on Oct. 15 and gets 33.

Both tracks opened well ahead of last fall. In 2025, CUNY's waiver for city public school students ran from Oct. 27 to Nov. 21, according to SUNY's announcement at the time. The window for everyone else lasted only from Nov. 10 to Nov. 21, which means a senior in Rochester who had 12 free days at CUNY last year has 33 this year.

The state's Higher Education Services Corporation keeps the master list of participating campuses, sorted into CUNY, SUNY and independent colleges. Its CUNY section names 20 colleges, from Baruch, Hunter and City College to Guttman, Hostos, Kingsborough and York, along with Macaulay Honors College and the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

The private colleges that close on Oct. 31

On the HESC list, 14 independent colleges carry a waiver that runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31. Downstate, that group includes Adelphi, Hofstra, LIM College, Manhattanville, New York Institute of Technology, St. Thomas Aquinas, the School of Visual Arts and Pace University's New York City campus. The Swedish Institute, The New School, Vaughn College, Pacific College of Health and Science, Rochester Institute of Technology and Paul Smith's College in the Adirondacks are on the same clock.

Mercy University and Wagner College run one day longer, to Nov. 1, while Fordham closes on Nov. 2 alongside SUNY and Vassar holds its window open until Nov. 15. Molloy University and both campuses of St. Joseph's University New York, in Brooklyn and Suffolk County, close on Nov. 16 with CUNY. Monroe University runs from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30 and is the only school on the table that names a code, SENIOR. Berkeley College waives its fee from Oct. 1 all the way to Dec. 31.

For a smaller group the date hardly matters. Hartwick, Houghton, Russell Sage and Bryant and Stratton list waivers that run all year. So do St. John's, Nazareth, St. Bonaventure, Trocaire, the University of Mount Saint Vincent, The College of Westchester and Pace's Westchester campus. Skidmore notes that applying is always free for New York residents, and Excelsior University says it never charges an application fee. Canisius and Siena cover the whole application season, while Ithaca and Marist list October and November.

A few rows on the table do not hold up as printed. Colgate's line gives an end date of Oct. 31, 2027, a year that does not match this application cycle, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's line says only to apply by Dec. 1, with no waiver window attached. D'Youville, Five Towns College and Plaza College are still listed as to be announced. Fei Tian College's northern campus, Finger Lakes Health College of Nursing and the New York School for Medical and Dental Assistants report no waiver available at this time. A senior with any of those names on a list should call the admissions office before paying a fee or assuming one will be waived.

Five SUNY applications, and a separate door for top students

SUNY's window is the shortest of the public tracks, 15 days from Monday, Oct. 19, through Monday, Nov. 2. The HESC table caps the waiver at five SUNY schools per student, drawn from 64 campuses on the list. Those run from Stony Brook, Binghamton and the University at Buffalo to Nassau, Suffolk and Monroe community colleges and the Fashion Institute of Technology. The state-supported colleges at Cornell, including the ILR School and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, are on the list too.

Last year SUNY's free period ran from Oct. 20 to Nov. 3, so its length stayed the same even as the larger initiative stretched to two months. "There is a place at SUNY for every New Yorker, and free college applications help prospective students take the first step in accessing the affordable, excellent education of their dreams," said SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr.

Seniors near the top of their class can also use SUNY's Top 10% Promise, which charges qualifying applicants no application fee. It directly admits them to at least one of ten campuses, among them Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Geneseo, New Paltz, Purchase and Stony Brook. Eligibility starts with a class rank in the top 10 percent plus an Advanced Regents or IB diploma. A Regents diploma also qualifies when paired with an SAT of at least 1100, an ACT of at least 23, or two qualifying AP or IB exam scores. The student opts in by answering yes to the program question on the SUNY application, and the high school confirms eligibility and sends the transcript.

The calendar, week by week

This week the private colleges that close on Oct. 31 are already accepting free applications, and CUNY opens to seniors outside city public schools on Thursday, Oct. 15. SUNY follows on Monday, Oct. 19, and on Wednesday, Oct. 21, state buildings will be lit in green and blue in honor of the initiative.

The last day of October closes the largest group of private waivers, and Mercy and Wagner follow on Nov. 1. SUNY and Fordham close together on Nov. 2, and Vassar's window ends Nov. 15. CUNY, Molloy and St. Joseph's all close on Nov. 16, which leaves Monroe's coded waiver running through Nov. 30 and Berkeley's through Dec. 31.

A waiver covers the fee and nothing else. The 2027-28 FAFSA and TAP applications are open on the same calendar. Seniors here already fall under the state's universal FAFSA requirement, so a student who submits a free application in October can file aid forms in the same sitting. A senior choosing where to spend five free SUNY applications can also check how a program's graduate earnings measure up before settling on campuses.

"Waiving application fees helps at the very first step," said State Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, who has chaired the Senate's higher education committee since 2019. "This fall, a high school senior can apply to SUNY, CUNY, and more than 45 private colleges at no cost. That means more choices, more first-generation students, and more New Yorkers on the path to a degree."

For a senior in Plattsburgh or in Flushing, the first deadline on that path is Oct. 31.