There is no easy path when applying to universities, but knowing all of your options and resources can alleviate some worry. Common App, the platform used by most American students to submit most of their college applications and write their personal essays, can be tricky to navigate. Maybe you can navigate Common App with ease, but you struggle with writing your essay or with selecting a specific list of colleges to apply to.
“I think it’s best if you start as soon as you can so you’re not rushing it towards the deadline,” senior Cole Wolfgang said.
The Common App profile takes quite a bit of time to set up before any applications can be sent to universities. To fill out your profile, open the Common App tab on the platform after signing in or creating an account. Inputting the facts of your family life in the family section and constructing your personal essay in the writing section will most likely be the most time consuming part of this step, but not necessarily the most confusing. Some students find the actual college applications a bit more perplexing.
“I’m a little confused on the recommendation part [of Common App],” senior Caroine Murrell said.
To answer any questions relating to recommendations, the first step is to complete the FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) release authorization which you can find after clicking on a college under the “My Colleges” tab and then selecting “Recommenders & FERPA” on the left side of the screen underneath the name of your selected university. Then, before a teacher writes you a recommendation, you must fill out a brag sheet–you can ask for one from your school counselor. After having been as detailed as possible in your accomplishments, share your sheet with the teacher(s) who can best speak to your personality and academic abilities. Your teacher(s) will have to write the recommendations through Common App, so you must send them an invitation from the website which can be found under the same tab as the FERPA release form.
“[Colleges] should have what I want to major in, a good [study] abroad program, and smaller classes,” senior Archie Meskhidze said.
There are many characteristics that factor into choosing a college, including what programs coincide with your chosen major, what kind of flexibility you have in choosing or changing your major, the campus aesthetic, the size of the school, the price range, or even the distance from home. Take some time to research your best fit based on what feature is most appealing to you in a university; Common App has a tab for this called “College Search.” Even if you are undecided in a major, some universities offer a program of exploratory classes to help you gauge your interests before settling on a specialization. Once you feel confident in your list of colleges, the final step is to input the schools into Common App under the “My Colleges” tab. The schools will show up on your dashboard.
Still worried about the college application process overall? We asked some seniors for their advice:
“Just take a few hours just try and get it all sorted out; it’s better to do it all in one chunk rather than to split it up by little ten minute sessions because if you do that, you are not going to be productive with it,” senior Mason Erman said. “It’s better to just try and knock it all out.”
“Do your research on schools, don’t stress yourself out a lot if you don’t know every single thing because everyone is just going out on a limb,” Murrell said.
“Start early! I didn’t do that and I wish I had,” Coralee Rodgers-Vickers said.
“Choose your prompt wisely and make sure you have a long time to work on it because it’s going to take a lot longer than you think it will and make sure to revise it a lot,” senior Andrew Kimbrel said in regards to the writing portion of the CommonApp profile.
Whether you are all set to use Common App or not, remember that your school counselors are always there to answer any questions that you may still have! Happy applying!
Graphic from Common App
