The Common Application is Becoming Commonplace

So you finally narrowed your choice of colleges to seven schools and now you are dreading filling out all of these college applications. The thought of writing seven different college admissions 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 college 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.

The Common Application (a.k.a. the Common App) is a not-for-profit organization that has been around for over 30 years and provides a general admissions and application form (online and in print) that students can submit to its 341 member colleges.

Universities that use the Common Application do so by choice, but according to the Common App website, “membership is limited to colleges and universities that evaluate students using a holistic selection process.”

That means that only colleges that require subjective criteria like a personal essay and letters of recommendation, as well as objective criteria, such as standardized test scores (such as sat scores or act scores)  can become members of the Common App.

Therefore, most of the Common App members are private institutions, since many large public colleges do not require an entrance essay or letters of recommendations.  So far in 2008, eight public colleges have joined the Common Application, bringing the total of public schools up to 25 for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Approximately one-third of the college members are “exclusive users,” meaning that these colleges use the Common Application as their only application for admission (online or in print). The rest of the member colleges also have their own application form, but the Common Application is given equal consideration.

Take your Supplements

With the Common App, some colleges also ask you to include supplemental forms with your application. These forms are a way of providing more college-specific info, like what you want to get out of that particular school or to specify an early action or early decision application.

Tips

• Be sure to double-check whether the colleges require supplemental forms with your application, which might be particular to a specific college.
• Keep in mind that there are different forms for first-year admissions and transfer students, so make sure that you fill out the right form!
• If you are into saving your time and energy (of course you are!) check out CampusCompare’s college main pages to see if your schools of choice are part of the Common App.
• Check back next week for the posting on the Universal College Application.

POSTED BY Reisa Resource IN Applications

04.14.08

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.