So Many College Applications. So Little Time!

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article updated August 1, 2018, to prepare you to be confused and overwhelmed during the crazy, hazy, upsy-daisy days of the 2018-19 college application season.

Just when you thought it was safe to start your college applications, you have to decide where to start them, how to submit them, and who will truly give you the easiest access, the most bang for your buck, and the greatest likelihood of success.

Most of those applying to colleges are familiar, for better and for worse, with the Common Application (with 750+ colleges), replete with it's spinning wheels of death, initializing bars of doom, and the very antithesis of commonality, college-specific supplements. [The Common App goes "live" August 1, but with the "rollover" of the past year's data, students may begin completing the common areas of the application at virtually any time during their high school careers.]

Beyond Common App, there are other online mass applicators (aside from the proprietary applications still utilized by many college).

The Universal College Application, home to some 15 college applications (down from 34 last season), is "live" (or is that, life support?) for 2018-19.

The application of the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, with 140 colleges on board for 2018-19 (up from 90 last year). The Coalition application is available now, but, as applicants will notice, mileage may vary as to availability of member college apps. [Bonus points if you could tell us just what the Coalition App has to do with Access, Affordability, and/or Success, anyway...]

And, if all of these college applications were not enough, well... Wait, there's more!

The Cappex (as in, the folks who bring you college and scholarship searches) application, host to 125 college apps, is apparently not only live, but quite well. Here's the Cappex Application, whose member colleges, though not necessarily on everyone's radar screen (which could be a good way to stay far from the madding crowds), offer a free-for-all. [Literally. There is no fee to apply via the Cappex Application! Hear that, Coalition for Affordability? ] Read more about the Cappex application HERE.

So, which application is right for you? [Ask your doctor, or, better still, your independent college counselor!] Common App? Universal App? Coalition App? Cappex App? The college's own application? [Compare to Brand "X" and save? Perhaps, "create a college application platform of your own."]

Which will entice you? Which is more likely to appeal to the college admissions office? Does the portfolio "Locker" of the Coalition App allow you to more fully develop who are? Does the "fee free" aspect of the yet unseen Cappex App keep more money in your pocket, and its relatively simple format keep so-called "supplements" on the drug store shelves, where they belong? Who uses the Universal College Application, anyway? And what about Naviance, which, to date, only connects with and through the Common App.
Maybe it's the essays?

Common App essay prompts
Universal College Application essay prompts
Coalition Application essay prompts
Cappex Application essay prompts:

• Required Essay: Tell us a story about yourself that is key to understanding who you are. This could be a moment when you changed, grew, or made a difference or an everyday moment that reveals something people count on you for (600 words or less)
• Optional Essay: The goal of this application is to reflect your unique interests, experiences, capabilities, and pursuits. To this end, is there anything else that you’d like to express?

And let's not forget the new and improved proprietary applications utilized by many colleges, those mind-blowing supplemental writings, and the all-encompassing "Insights," through which colleges seek to explore, without resort to the Vulcan mind-meld, the inner workings of the student brain.

Oh, the humanity!

If your head isn't spinning yet, just wait until those elite colleges require not only a DNA test, but your Apgar scores, as well. [No doubt to be submitted via College Board, for a fee to be determined, of course (Add $35 for Apgar scores to arrive before 2025).]

And if you think, but for a nanosecond, that U.S. News, Forbes, The Princeton Review, and Niche, among countless others, aren't waiting stealthily in the wings to rank the plethora of college application portals, well, I have a year's tuition at Trump University to sell you!

As if the college-bound, and their parents, had nothing else to concern themselves with as they start down that long and winding road to college.

Mind-boggling? Confusing? Overwhelming? Just plain ridiculous? You betcha! The folks who brought us the Collegiate Industrial Complex, where even the heretofore simple act of boiling water has now become "nuanced" and "complex," wouldn't have it any other way!

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