The Common Application

The Common Application is a single-purpose application form that a great deal of colleges agreed to use to collect each applicant’s basic information. It has been in existence for over thirty years. It was designed specifically to help students spend the bulk of their time on classes rather than on completing many different college application forms.
Colleges elect to join the common application consortium. In doing so, admission representatives sign an agreement annually and pledge full and equal consideration of the common application as their own. Students may wish to acquire school specific applications for their top choices, but it does not necessarily give that student an advantage. When applying to specific departments of a school, there may be an additional or supplemental form that an applicant must fill out in order to be considered for that particular program. The common application is available at www.commonapp.org.

How to use the Common Application:

• Check the resource information on the common application to determine which colleges participate, what their respective deadlines and application fees are and how many teacher recommendations are required.
• Print the application and fill it in, or, type your responses online and print it out.
• Click on the “supplements” section online. Then choose the names of the colleges to which you are applying to determine if each school requires any additional information sheets in order to complete your application. Fill out any applicable supplements and print them out.
• Bring the number of copies you wish to have mailed to the college counselor’s office. Complete a College Admissions Checklist for each college to which you are applying. This is so that the counselor and you have all-important information in one place.
• Print out the counselor forms and teacher evaluations. Distribute these forms to the appropriate people.