When news of a new Coalition application was introduced last fall, admissions counselors knew they would have to learn an entirely new application platform in order to help their students apply to college the following fall. As a college counselor, I was perhaps most interested in the way that the new application—and its essay requirements—might change the way my seniors were able to approach their work over the application season. Would students be able to engage in brainstorming in the same ways they had in the past? What sorts of essays would they need to produce? How much extra work would a new application require of them?

The Coalition Application is a new college application platform currently described by the popular media as a direct competitor to the Common Application. The group behind its creation is the “Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success.” According to their website, the Coalition is a group of schools “that share a commitment to providing students with the best possible college experience, beginning with the college application process.”

The Coalition states they came together because:

A growing amount of research has shown that students from disadvantaged backgrounds often do not participate effectively in the college application process, struggle with applying for financial aid, and often do not get awarded all the financial aid for which they qualify.

Mastering the Activities Section of the Common Application

College applicants are infamously known to stress about their essays. And it’s not uncommon for students to spend weeks (if not months) brainstorming their ideal essay topic and then editing it down to perfection. But our college admissions experts would like to point out that there’s another section of the Common Application that also requires a great deal of writing yet receives far less attention. Some application readers would argue that it also happens to be the section that applicants most often overlook and under appreciate.

What is it?

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

It’s now time to discuss what many students consider to be the most important (and stressful) part of the Common Application: the essay. While we won’t be using this particular blog share advice about what students should actually write, we will be focusing on practical, big-picture issues, like “Why aren’t my paragraphs indented in the print preview?” And if you’re utterly confused by the brightly colored charade known as the new “Writing Requirements” section of the Dashboard, here’s your chance to gain some clarity. (Spoiler alert: while we can explain some of the poor choices made by the Common App, we can’t fix them.)

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

So the dust has settled. For the past several days, students have been hard at work trying to complete the three dozen or so digital pages that comprise the Common Application. Once you get the hang of it, navigating the Common App becomes almost second nature; you’ll soon find yourself deftly flipping from one section to another with the swift click of a button. But there are still some hidden tricks and common pitfalls that plague many applicants each year. In Part II of our in-depth look at the 2015 Common Application, we’ll answer your frequently asked questions related to the Education, Testing, and Activities pages. Don’t see your burning question listed below? Post a comment at the bottom of the screen, and you’ll have your answer soon enough!

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

When the Common App went live on July 31, 2015 at approximately 7:40pm ET, I was ready. I pounced on the login page, eagerly typing in a username and password that would usher me to the new and improved 2015 Common App. Although I was already familiar with the planned updates to this year’s Common App, I wanted to see them in action. Would the new print preview feature alleviate much of the stress applicants faced last year? Would the new “Writing Requirements” section become the answer to all of our organizational dreams? Over the next few weeks, please join us as we deconstruct the 2015 Common Application, answering many of applicants’ frequently asked questions about completing their college applications. Up first: setting up your Common Application account and competing the Profile and Family pages.

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

The Common Application launches today, and students around the country will have the opportunity to login and begin filling out the information within. While we recommend students create an account and begin to poke around the application’s dashboard and other tools, we also want students to know that there is no inherent value in submitting the application as quickly as possible—especially if that means sacrificing the quality of the materials within. Every year an article highlights the kid who submitted the first application of the year. Pay no mind. When apps are read months from now, there’ll be no timestamp on the forms—no priority list based on when apps come in.

For help with the Common App itself, return to us often. In addition to comprehensive posts on the Common App’s new interface for this year, our Common App expert Elyse Krantz joined fellow educator Beth Heaton on College Coach’s Getting In: A College Coach Conversation radio show this week to help make sense of all the ins and outs of the app.

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

Earlier this month the Common Application introduced the first in a series of webinars focused on best practices and tips for completing the Common Application. Like all presentations in the series, the first webinar, titled “What to Expect in the 2015-2016 Common Application,” was geared specifically for guidance counselors.  But why should guidance counselors have all the fun? We’d like prospective applicants and their parents to get in on the Common App action, too! Unless you’re desperate to sit through a recorded webinar on the ins and outs of the revised 2015 Common App, allow the experts at College Coach to happily summarize the details for you.

1. Students must add their high school name (and CEEB code) before they can invite their guidance counselor and teachers to submit letters of recommendation. It’s crucial that students select the correct high school in this process, especially if they attend a high school that uses Naviance eDocs to manage the paperless submission process.

Update: Read the latest tips for the 2017-18 Common App.

The Common Application Reveals New Essay Prompts for 2015-16

Some students choose to write about sports. Or their love of helping others. Or even about their unusual hobby of collecting those kitschy plastic-domed snow globes. Whatever the topic, the college admissions essay is meant to reveal a glimpse of a student’s character, one that – ideally – will help set that student apart from the thousands of other applicants vying for a spot at that same institution.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Common Application announced its new lineup of essay prompts for the 2015-16 admissions cycle. And while this proclamation is certainly big news, I’d like to remind current high school juniors that there’s no need to agonize over which prompt they should choose.

At the start of this year’s application season, we released a series of articles on what to expect with the 2014-2015 Common Application. In response, we received many great Common App questions from our readers and thought it might be helpful to share the most frequently asked questions to help you put the finishing touches on your applications.

4 Common App FAQs

Q: Can a recommendation from one teacher be sent to multiple schools on my list?

A: Each teacher can write one letter of recommendation for you, and this same letter gets sent to all of the schools to which you have assigned him/her on the “Recommenders and FERPA” section of the Common Application. If you decide to apply to more schools later on in the process, your teacher’s letter will be sent automatically to those schools as well, as long as you have assigned him/her as the recommender for those new institutions.