What is the Common Application?

Applying to college is an incredible experience. It is simultaneously fun and extremely stressful, inspiring and difficult. With many high school students today apply to more than nine colleges, much time is painstakingly put into the application process. While you should certainly spend this time, the Common Application is designed to alleviate some of the stress of applying. With the Common Application going live for the 2012 – 2013 application year on August 1, it is important that you know all that you can about it.

What is the Common Application and why is it important to you? The Common Application is an online and in-print admissions college application accepted by more than four hundred fifty schools in the United States and abroad. No longer do high school students need to fill out fifteen applications for fifteen schools — they can simply fill out one and the accompanying supplement for each school. In the 2011 – 2012 application season, more than 2.5 million college-bound students used the Common Application.

The application is designed for schools using holistic admissions processes, concentrating on each applicant subjectively instead of just grade point averages and test scores. The new Common App also allows high school officials and guidance counselors to upload criteria and recommendation letters themselves onto each student’s application instead of having to mail forms separately.

Conveniently, the application is set up to deliver all of your important facts, accomplishments, essays and test scores in a fashion that is easy to decipher for admissions officers and simplifies the process on all sides. Colleges that want personalized essays can add supplemental essay questions instead of requiring students to edit their main essay in minor ways. The application offers a convenient way to keep all of your admissions work in one place, and even comes with an option to save your work if you need more time or become too stressed!

Become one of the millions of students to use the Common Application to limit the stress of the application process. August 1 is almost here!