My recruiter wants me to join Air Force DEP early? PLEASE READ?

Ok, I am in the summer before my senior year right now (17 years old) and for the past year and a half I have wanted to join the air force. Originally the Air Force Academy, but due to the low acceptance rate I am basing my decision on getting denied from that. So I have decided to enlist if I get declined and therefore been preparing. I took the ASVAB test a couple days ago and scored an 82 (High School GPA is 3.5 FYI). I want to go into Operations Intelligence (1N0X1). Now my recruiter has been calling me to come in and give him all the documents to sign me up for MEPS and then move into the Softbook Program until September and then move right into DEP 8 months before I would want to ship out! What I would prefer to do is wait to go to MEPS and move into DEP around November so I can be positive that this is what I want to do and that will still give me 6 months in the DEP program to try and receive a spot for my job. My question is do I really need to join DEP this early and what are the advantages?