sooners

Carleton has posted a sociology job ad with a deadline of July 13, with the idea of conducting preliminary interviews at ASA. Is this unusually early, or is my understanding and recollection of sociology job deadlines wrong? I guess the ad doesn't ask for letters of recommendation, just references. I've never been asked to write a letter of recommendation for a position with a July deadline, but I don't know if that says more about my experience as a letter writer or about the rarity of July deadlines for positions open to new Ph.D.'s. Anyone?

(Part of me asking is that everyone in sociology seems to be complaining about how the job deadlines are getting earlier and earlier. If ASA kept records of their application ads over the years, this could actually be an interesting thing to study, especially in terms of how the sequence has gone of places moving up their deadlines. I don't think there would be any rule against ASA trying to impose some kind of guidelines to set the timing of the market, but that would require the ASA leadership to show leadership, and I'm not naïve enough to stand on the platform waiting for that train.)