Common App’s leadership just reported tremendous growth in applications since 2019 when the pandemic began. Since then, applicants, applications, and applications per applicant have increased substantially; an underrepresented minority (URM) and first-gen applicant groups have increased at faster rates than their non-URM and continuing-gen counterparts.
Topics: Common Application, Common App Trend
Read MoreTopics: Common Application, Common App Trend
Topics: College Application Essay, Common Application, College Application, Coalition App, UF, FSU, UCF, Personal Statement
Applying to college is never a one-and-done deal. As we’ve observed in previous articles, applying to college extends beyond the application itself, encompassing other activities like essays, test scores, and recommendations, all of which take time to complete or “collect” – in addition to the hours spent researching where you’d like to apply first! If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that our mantra is apply early. But, you may be saying to yourself, “Surely, I can get my college applications done in a day or two.” How long do college applications really take?
Topics: College Application Essay, Common Application, College Application, Coalition App
Read MoreTopics: College Application Essay, Common Application, College Application, Coalition App
What does it take to write a good supplemental essay that responds to the prompt, “Why are you applying to this college?”and other college-specific questions? It takes planning, and two of the best planning techniques are to doing some research and brainstorming. Take a few minutes to understand how the question may be tied to the college’s mission statement.
Topics: Common Application
Read MoreTopics: Common Application
The Common Application (www.commonapp.org), accepted by more than 900 universities, undergoes annual changes to improve the application. This year’s changes are primarily based on removing barriers to application completion, thus ensuring equal opportunities for all students. The Common Application will be down for a few days in the last week of July to be updated for next year, and the new application will be launched on August 1st. However, you should be working on this year’s application now as your application will “rollover” to the new application when it launches. At that time, you’ll be walked through a series of screens to initiate the rollover. All seven sections of the Common App will rollover; however, your answers to changed questions will be blank, necessitating your answering the revised questions.
Topics: College Admission, Common Application
Read MoreTopics: College Admission, Common Application
Most questions on the Common Application’s Education page are quite straightforward. Here are some tips for those questions that are not:
Topics: College Admission, Common Application, Tutoring, Educational Consulting
Read MoreTopics: College Admission, Common Application, Tutoring, Educational Consulting
Topics: Common Application
Before we tell you what colleges are likely looking for in your list of activities, we’ll say this: their importance has not diminished in any way. In fact, it has probably increased in the face of so many colleges going test-optional because of COVID-19. Admissions officers will scrutinize your activities list and read between the lines to understand the true nature of your involvement to each activity. That brings us to activity “fundamentals” – what you must strive to include in your list.
Topics: College Application Essay, College Admission, Common Application, College Application, College Counseling, College Tips
Read MoreTopics: College Application Essay, College Admission, Common Application, College Application, College Counseling, College Tips
In an April blog post titled Recommendation Letters In the Era of Covid-19, we noted that “LORs [letters of recommendation] were important in admission decisions even before the Coronavirus made in-person interviews problematic, and they’re likely to increase in importance now.” Nothing that we’ve learned since then has changed our minds about that…
…but there’s another dimension to recommenders and recommendations about which you might not be aware: whoever completes your Common App School Report (often conflated with the “counselor recommendation”) is going to be asked to rate you in terms of the following factors and in this manner:
Topics: College Admission, Common Application, College Counseling, Letter of Recommendation
Read MoreTopics: College Admission, Common Application, College Counseling, Letter of Recommendation
Most of the Common App is pretty straightforward to complete, but one question we hear quite often from our students is “How should I complete the Testing page?” Unfortunately, the answer isn’t straightforward.
You should fill in your test scores and dates on the Common App Testing Section based upon the type of scores you wish to self-report.
Topics: College Admission, Common Application, Test-Prep, College Application, Educational Consulting
Read MoreTopics: College Admission, Common Application, Test-Prep, College Application, Educational Consulting
