General applications like the Common App and the Universal College App are increasing in popularity as a one-size-fits-all admissions application.

But sometimes one size doesn’t quite fit everybody. For instance, you may not be interested in the same college major across all the schools that you are applying to. Or you may not require the same kind of financial aid at each institution. Or, you may not want to apply for Early Action or Early Decision at every school.

The standardized applications are trying to include these differences without reverting back to the institutions’ individual applications.

Beginning July 1, 2008, when the next admissions cycle starts, the online Common Application will include a handful of questions that may be answered differently for different colleges within the Common Application itself. These questions include academic interest, career interest, decision plan (Early Decision, Early Acceptance, rolling, etc.), entry term (Fall or Spring), and financial aid intent.

The online Common App will also let you hide certain answers for certain schools. For example, if standardized test scores are optional at a particular school, the college may decide to suppress all standardized test scores. The Common App will then prevent that college from seeing your scores. These changes will cut down the number of alternative versions that you need to write - which means less work for you!

The Universal College Application also allows users to tailor your application, but to a lesser extent.

If you realize that you made a mistake (be it grammatical or if you provided wrong information), the Universal College App allows you to make a copy of your submission, make the desired changes, and then submit the desired application to other designated member colleges or universities.

All this to say, standardized application doesn’t mean that you are standard in any way. These tools will only help you stand out from the crowd!

So you finally narrowed your choice of colleges to seven schools and now you are dreading filling out the application for each of those colleges. The thought of writing seven different college entrance essays and getting seven envelopes and stamps makes you cringe.

Well, colleges have caught on to the fact that applying to college is stressful enough and have decided to cut applicants some slack - at least when it comes to the application form.

Two general admissions and application forms, the Common Application and the Universal College Application, are gaining momentum. That means you can apply to different colleges but you only need to fill out one form, write one admissions essay and send your application to a variety of colleges and programs with the click of one button.

In this week’s post, we check out the Common Application.

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