Seniors, the time has come! College application season has started and the crazy rush all the past seniors have told us about, makes so much more sense.
The stress of getting into college should be more than enough but for the average students, the application process can just be as hard. Remembering to turn in supplemental essays and personal statements through each universities websites can be tiring and stressful.
Introducing Common App, a website that makes college season a little bit easier to navigate. Common App is a free website and is a software most universities use to accept applications. If you go on to the website, click first year student, and sign up, you have just completed the first step to being done with applications.
Health Academy senior Zia Fatemah Yusufali says Common App was “primarily easy to use.”
“I would recommended other people to use [it] if they are applying to multiple universities because it’s easier…compared to filling a separate application.”
Once you have created an account, you can add colleges to your list and check out what they require you to submit. Universities such as USF do not require supplemental essays but colleges such as Emory do. Common App will provide all the information about the requirements under each tab, ensuring you do not forget to submit a key component of your application.
After selecting colleges, Common App will allow you to fill out information such as SAT/ACT scores, family history, and academics. This information will be given to the universities you apply to so you don’t have to retype the same information so many times. This section complies all four of your high school years into one single tab. In this section, you can also report activities completed in high school such as clubs, volunteering opportunities, and/or officer positions.
Akshitha Pinnamaraju, an IB senior, discusses her Common App journey while applying
“[Common App] is fairly easy to use but I was having trouble finding the specific supplemental a that I needed to apply for certain programs such as honors.”
This is a valid point and certain universities do make you submit additional applications for programs such as honors. In Common App, clicking on the profile of each college and read throughly to see what they expect is always a good start. Additionally, if you are applying honors and have to submit the application through a different portal, make sure to stay on top of it. Many online college prep websites such as Prep Scholar give free spreadsheet downloads that can be used as a tracking sheet for all the universities you apply to.
Pinnamaraju continues by saying that she wish someone had told seniors like her to start early. “There are certain sections of common app that are very easy to fill out such as family information and I recommend to start doing it in anytime people are free.”
Reflecting on her college application season, Pinnamaraju states: “There is a lot of stress with Common Apps around this time as we don’t have much time to only do collage applications, we have additional homework and things, and this process is very hard to manage with time and stuff so if we got guidance on when we should have our essay by, when we should start doing supplements it would really helpful.”
With the general overview done, Common App has a place to submit all your essays under each college tab and get recommendations letters from your teachers to really wow the colleges.
College season is hard as it is so submitting them shouldn’t be. Make a Common App account today to get stay ahead of all your applications and don’t fall behind. Class of 2025, you got this and as always good luck!