The College Student Blog

Overview

The Common Application (Common App) is quite a useful tool in your college admission process. It allows you to apply to 315 colleges with the use of only 1 application. That means instead of writing 315+ different essays, its 1 or 2.

In my opinion, all colleges should adopt to one universal application such as the Common App. If each school would like one separate, unique, and short answer essay, I would classify that as ok also. However, the current college application system is crazy! If it wasn’t so nuts, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway!

The list of the 315 colleges that accept the Common App can be found here. In order for a college to be accepted into the Common App group of schools, they must give equal treatment to those using the Common App, as opposed to the “standard” application process. Hopefully these schools are actually doing so…

Some schools are actually using the Common Application as their ONLY form of application. The list of these schools can be found here. Included in this list is Northwestern, Yale, and Rice University. Hopefully colleges continue to follow the path being trail blazed by these powerhouse schools.

College Finances

Next post I will start my section on financing the rising cost of college. I will offer real-life experiences from someone who has (very) recently been there!