The complaint that we hear from students is that they continue to struggled with the online application and high schools are unclear about their policies and adapt to the new rules in differing ways. That leaves everyone in a quandary.
When we asked the college admissions administrators to answer some of the questions that students have about the Common Application, they denied our requests and referred us to the creators of the Common Application. HOwever, after searching, we did come up with some answers to the questions asked with the following: “Students can find detailed instructions on how to create alternate versions of their application in the ‘Application Versions’ section of the main instructions page.” For all follow up questions, the response was, “Again, I will direct you to the instructions regarding alternate versions.” Helpful? Nope! The “detailed instructions” make us dizzy.
The Common Application's values are "integrity, equity, reliability, access, service." We would like to add to that "confusion."
While working with our students, we always instruct them to customize their application to the specific school to which they are applying so they can ensure that they are showing WHY they specifically want to attend that school. The Common Application does not make that easy. They encourage students to dutifully follow their guidelines and submit one Common Application to all of your schools. We reject this approach. Fortunately, you can create up to 10 different versions. The Common Application does not want you to do this, so it makes it difficult, but it’s well within the rules. Some students make different versions if they decide to write a new essay or want to add an accomplishment. As well, many students make different version so that they can customized essays. Some students will send entirely different essays to different schools, especially if school-specific supplements compel them to mix-and-match. (For instance, you might write a great ‘in the nation’s service’ supplement for Princeton that then becomes your main essay for other schools.) The only catch is that the Common Application lets you make only 10 versions (it was 20 in previous years).
Some students apply to more than 10 schools and might want to create more than 10 versions of the Common Application in order to include customized ‘why’ essays appended to their personal statements or additional information essays. The Common Application will not allow this. However, because many schools ask for separate ‘why’ essays in their supplements, it’s highly unlikely that you’d submit more than 10 customized personal statements. Therefore, you can make one version with your generic essays and submit that version to all the schools with separate why essays. You then make customized versions for those schools that do not ask for separate ‘why’ essays. Please note that the decision to ‘why’ essays to schools that do not ask for them is entirely up to you. We recommend doing so. However, if you choose to go with all generic essays, then you don’t need to worry about different Common Application versions.
Are you still confused? Look at the demo presentation provided for by the Common Application. We are still assisting students with their application through December 15th. The Class of 2013 should take note, we are signing up students now.
Watch the DEMO of the Common Application here ---
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for submitting your thoughts.