John Flynn ’14, Leah Yao ’15: Major changes are being made to the Common Application for the next academic year. The Common Application was created in 1975 as a unified application process for students. Although today most colleges have their own application supplement, the Common Application provides groundwork for a student’s application. There have been a number of small tweaks made this year on the Common Application, and the most major one involves the essay section.
For a long time, despite having some specific essay prompts, there has always been an option for students to choose their own topic. Beginning next year, students will have to respond to one of the directed essay prompts listed on the application. According to the Common App website, “The new prompts and the written guidance around them are the culmination of two years of discussion about the role writing plays in a holistic selection process.”
However, Matt Essman, Head of College Guidance, stated, “The assurance has been that they will continue to be very broad to make sure that it could cover just about everything and they’re all going to direct you to essentially tell your story.”
There was previously a 500 word suggestion for the essay, but it was not strictly enforced. The essay now has a strict maximum word count of 650 words and a minimum set at 250 words. Other minor changes include the omission of the paragraph in which applicants describe their favorite extracurricular activity. The main purpose of cutting this section is to allow each university to tailor-make its own prompts. According to Essman, “Colleges, on their individual supplements, can put that on there if they wanted but it will not be a part of the main application.”
Finally, the supplements to the Common Application will be more standardized for the upcoming school year. Essman stated, “There are still different supplements for each college, but they are more standardized. They’re trying to give it more of a common application feel.” He explained that “a supplement is designed to gage your interest and knowledge level in a particular school…My strong feeling is that those [supplemental] questions will still be pretty targeted towards that specific school.”
Essman feels that since next year’s senior class has never dealt with the Common App before, there will not be any adjustment involved. “It’s essentially asking for the same information but it’s just going to have a different look. That’s what it boils down to,” he noted.
He added that the Common Application process will be more user friendly than in the past, allowing students to edit their application for multiple colleges, but“for the most part, it’s not a wholesale change.”