The Common Application is Up: Ten Tips 28


The Common Application is the free online application that centralizes most private and many public college applications. Follow these ten tips to get you started.

Tip 1 Sign up today!!! It just came online August 1. https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/default.aspx. Seniors and Transfers. Also teachers and counselors can make accounts to see what students must do. If you use Naviance, you can connect the two.

Tip 2 Account Set Up,

  • Use an email address you check often.
  • Set up an easy user name and password. Your user name and password are okay.
  • Text yourself and save in a million places your user name and password.

Tip 3 Overall Application. You can keep changing info until the minute you submit the application. So don’t worry. You can go back and make changes. You must fill in items that have a yellow dot in front. You can leave non yellow dot items blank.

Tip 4 Left hand column. Learn that left hand column is the links to each core section of application.

Tip 5 Future Plans. Each colleges asks for different info so don’t freak out. You can

Tip 6 My Colleges. Click on it. Add all your college choices. You will see core information about each college. Application. Supplemental. Payments. School Forms. School Details.

Tip 7 Supplements. Click on this tab on left. You will see information about supplements for each college on your list. Start a master list of the supplemental short and long essays. Color code overlapping prompts.

Tip 8 Activities. Put in order of your most important activities and jobs. Make sure to express leadership and initiative in the one line. If you have more than the allotted number of activities, you can combine some common activities or put extras under additional information.

Tip 9 Writing. Start working on essays now. Use my into, through, and beyond approach for both long and short (activity) essays. Grab readers attention!!! You have 1000 characters for short. You upload the long essay but try to keep it to one page.

Tip 10 School Forms. These are the forms for your counselor and teachers. Most schools ask for you to do these forms online and control the number of teacher letters so select your best teacher as teacher one.

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About rjoseph

I am the creator and visionary behind this site. I want to do everything I can to help students consider college as an option, even when they may be the first in their family to go or may not have the funds at hand. Don't let anyone tell you that you don't have the right or the ability to go to college.

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