---
title: Halving a deadline costs 1.4% of marks each time
date: "2025-02-08T06:30:45Z"
lastmod: "2025-02-08T11:18:53Z"
categories:
  - data
  - education
wp_id: 3929
description: "Later submissions correlate with lower scores in a smooth logarithmic pattern, suggesting that even pretending a deadline is earlier may be strategically useful."
keywords: [deadlines, submission timing, scores, learning behavior, education analytics, time management]
---

Does it make a difference if you submit early vs submit late? Here's some empirical data.

About ~1,000 students at IIT Madras took 3 online quizzes ([GA1](https://exam.sanand.workers.dev/tds-2025-01-ga1), [GA2](https://exam.sanand.workers.dev/tds-2025-01-ga2), [GA3](https://exam.sanand.workers.dev/tds-2025-01-ga3)) in the last few weeks. The deadlines were all at midnight (India) on different days. Here's when they submitted their final answers:

- **There was a spurt of submissions at the last minute**.\
  ~1 out of 8 students submit with < 10 minutes remaining.
- **Most students submitted ~4 hours before the deadline**.\
  In fact, 3 out of 4 students submit on the same day as the deadline.
- **A fair number of students submitted the previous day/night**.\
  1 out of 6 are diligent and submit a day early.

But does submitting late help, since you get more time? Apparently not.

![](https://files.s-anand.net/images/2025-02-08-impact-of-late-submissions.webp)

On average, every time the deadline is halved, the score drops by 1.4%.

For example, **on average**:

- Submitting 1 minute before scores 1.4% less than submitting 2 minutes before
- Submitting 2 minutes before scores 1.4% less than submitting 4 minutes before
- Submitting 4 minutes before scores 1.4% less than submitting 8 minutes before
- … etc.

This means that submitting early morning instead of midnight could give you a **15% advantage**.

Of course, this might be confusing cause and effect. Maybe students who do well submit early, and those who struggle submit late.

But is there a merit in faking it till you make it? Perhaps by pretending your deadline is a day early, to get the best of both worlds? Something to think about...