[Antichron]

It is my impression that deadlines for everything the student is supposed to submit are fairly important. (Deadlines for recommendation letter writers are less important, though the letters certainly need to show up before the admissions committee starts reading them.) I personally would pay the 20 bucks per transcript to have them sent quickly (and hope they get there in time). Obviously, I wouldn't rush the transcripts for the schols that don't have the December 15th deadline.

I suspect a major reason why schools have mid December deadlines is so that they can ensure that all the material shows up by the time the admissions committees start looking at it (which is probably late January), but I wouldn't want to risk turning one costly mistake into a more costly mistake. Perhaps others have different opinions on this, though.