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
600+ 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 a new
"rollover" of this year's data, students may begin completing the
common areas of the application now.]
But there are other online mass applicators (aside from the
proprietary applications still utilized by many college).
The Universal College
Application, home to some 44 college applications, which will go
"live" for 2016-17 on July 1.
The newly minted (and still not quite ready for prime time)
application of the Coalition for Access,
Affordability, and Success, with 58 colleges on board for
2016-17 (down from 90 member colleges, the remainder taking a "wait and
see" stance). [The Coalition application is available now, but, as
applicants will notice, many sections are said to be "Coming Soon."]
And, if all of these college applications were not enough,
well... Wait, there's more!
Coming in September, the Cappex (as in, the folks who bring
you college and scholarship searches) application. [You can only read about
the Cappex Application at
this point in time, the actual application, with likely access to somewhere in
the neighborhood of 600 colleges, still on the drawing board.]
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 University of
California essay prompts
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!
- - -
For more on the college application frenzy, READ my colleague, Nancy
Griesemer's, poignant and concise article, Cappex Enters The College
Applications Market.
* * *
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