Montclair High School Seniors Conquer The Common App

Even though school is still weeks away, the senior year duties of applying to college have already begun for the Montclair High School class of 2013. On August 1, the Common App became available, igniting the beginning of the end for this year’s MHS seniors.

With the Common App now available online, the process of applying to college can begin, taking the class of 2013 even closer to their future colleigate endeavors.

The “Common Application” (affectionately dubbed the “Common App”) is a website that high school seniors use to apply to many different colleges in one single application.

The whole point of the Common App is to make applying to college easier and more accessible. It requires students to only enter their information once and then send that information out to the 456 different colleges and universities with the click of their mouse. The Common App gets rid of all the unsightly hassle of having to fill out multiple applications.

First, you must search and add all the schools you wish to apply to. Adding schools is easy since the Common App provides a search bar that students can simply type any school’s name into.

Next you fill out information in the various different sections of the Common App: future plans, applicant, demographics, family, education, academics, activities, and writing. Each section asks specific questions that are geared to help paint an accurate picture of the student for college.

There is a maximum character count in the activities section, which frustrates many students, so to make things easier the Common App supplies an additional information section where students can elaborate more on their activities.

The writing section of the Common App features two written response questions. The first question asks for you to write about one of your extracurricular experiences in 1,000 characters or less (which means an essay that is significantly less than what I have written thus far). This may seem easy, but writing something short and charming is actually quite a daunting task. Nevertheless, lots of students already know what they’re going to use those 1,000 characters for.

“I’m definitely writing about one of my community service jobs,” said one senior. “I think that will make the best impression of me to a college in under 1,000 characters.”

The other aspect of the writing section is the 500-word essay, which can be written on any of the given topics or a topic of your choice. The college essay scares many students, but for those who are good with words, they relish the challenge.

Another great thing about the Common App is that it additionally puts all the college supplements in one easy and accessible place.

Many colleges require students to fill out a supplement in addition to the Common App. These supplements ask specific questions about the students, their activities, and their interest in the school. For many colleges and universities, completing the supplements is a required part of the application process.

While the Common App may place these supplements in one easy and accessible place, it doesn’t make them any less daunting!

Supplements require more writing. So, in addition to responding to the writing section of the common app, the student must write more for these supplements. Essay questions on supplements vary and some questions are more difficult than others.

Supplements don’t always have to be the bane of the application process though. Some students enjoy them a lot more than the Common App itself.

“I’m not too worried about the supplements,” says senior Danny DeSimone. “They seemed to have questions that let you display your personality. I like that.”

The Common App is practically night and day from the old application process. When my parents were applying to college years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and rock and roll was still a legitimate genre of music, the application process was very chaotic and tedious. Every school had a different application and things weren’t all in one easily accessible location.

The Common App has significantly altered that by placing everything in an easily reachable place. No more will students have to worry about thousands of different pieces of paper floating around their house or having to meet too many different deadlines. Everything the student needs to apply to college, including the supplements, is right there at one URL. 

“The Common App is great because it allows me to apply to a bunch of colleges without having to fill out a million applications with the same information over and over again,” explains senior Cassie Walter. “It makes a stressful process a whole lot simpler.”

Additionally, the Common App also makes the process more independent. Students these days are very technologically savvy and with the Common App being online, they are easily able to figure it out with little help from parents or a guidance counselor.

While the Common App is a blessing from the college application gods and may make the application process of college more convenient, it doesn’t mean it makes it enjoyable. The Common App causes an abrupt end to summer for MHS seniors.

“I hate that it’s out already,” says senior Piper Rosenberg. “It’s already making me stressed out and quite frankly it makes me feel like I’m dying at all times.”

Getting the Common App done takes a lot of time too and keeps students from soaking up the sun during these final weeks of summer.

“I tried just powering through it in one shot,” explains senior Liam Hobbie. “The length wasn’t bad at all, it was just all the little details it required that made it suck. Like details about my parents or guidance counselor. It just made it so painstakingly long.”

While the Common App signifies an end to summer for the MHS class of 2013, the seniors are still approaching it with a sense of exuberance. And why wouldn’t they? Once completed, they’re only one click away from the next chapter in their lives...