College Application Series - Part 5: COMMON APP OVERVIEW
By Karen Treon
It’s summertime and the living is easy . . . and the whole college application process is starting to get real! While filling out the Common App is not a race, summer is a good time to get accounts set up and fill out preliminary information.
Some students might have already started working on the Common App (you can review our Common App blog post for juniors here). If your student hasn’t started and needs a refresher on The Common App, it is a widely used platform for college applications. Over 1,000 colleges and universities use it, and if your student is planning to apply to more than a handful of colleges, odds are that they will use the Common App.
Your student can open an account and click around if they want to check it out, and parents can have a look at the very helpful Parent Resources page. We are also big fans of the AXS Companion - a free tool developed by Oregon State University and the Independent Educational Consultants Association to help students navigate the Common App. We suggest that students start with the following steps:
Have a look at the current year essay prompts. Students will see that the prompts are broad. Now is a good time for students to start jotting down ideas about things they might want to write about. We have more information about essays and links to great guidance
Make a plan for Letters of Recommendation. You can review our Sixth Semester blog post for more information.
The Common App will ask your student for biographical and family information, and getting these sections complete is a good way to learn to work with the Common App (which is very user-friendly and intuitive). We suggest starting with those sections and then moving onto the self-reported grades (which is not as intuitive because every high school is different!) Students should start the self-reported grades section with a CURRENT transcript in hand. Students will enter classes and grades one by one. If your student has a question or is getting frustrated, here are a few suggestions you can pass along to them.
The AXS Companion Tool is a treasure trove of information. Your student can click on Common App Tab / Courses and Grades and find clear and accurate information that will likely answer their question.
Students can also check out the Application Guide and FAQs on the Common App website. If your student has a question, the odds are that plenty of other students have had the same one, and the answer is probably on the Common App page.
It is important that students have their transcripts in hand when they self-report their grades in order to ensure accuracy.
It may be that your student has questions about self-reporting grades and will need to talk to a school counselor when school starts again in the fall. If that’s the case - it’s no problem. Students can move along to other sections of the Common App without finalizing previous sections. It is all a draft and modifiable until it is submitted.
Pro Tip: High school seniors have not gone through a college application season before, and they won’t do it again. Most have not managed these kinds of task lists, and they don’t have existing knowledge to draw on to help them prioritize. Family members can help by suggesting prioritized action plans that help students move from a state of overwhelm to a state of organization.
