On August 1st, the 2011-12 Common Application goes live. If you're a senior applying to college, chances are you'll be completing this, given that there are now 456 colleges that accept it.
Here are four things you should do before August 1st, courtesy of Arun at Collegewise.
1. Bookmark https://www.commonapp.org.
You’ll be using it a lot in the months to come. (Use Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. Other browsers are NOT supported, although rumor is that Chrome will be when the new app comes online.)
2. Make sure the spell checker in your browser is enabled.
You can find out more about the various spell checkers here: Firefox , Internet Explorer and Safari. It’s essential you know how this works.
3. Friend the Common Application on Facebook.
They offer lots of great tips throughout the year, and the Support tab on the left is filled with excellent answers to a lot of questions. It’s also helpful to bookmark the FAQs.
4. Most importantly, take six minutes and watch this video carefully.
Six minutes now will save you nail-biting and hair-pulling later.
In September, Arun and I will be releasing our guideline, "How to Make Your Common Application a Lot Less Common." If you're applying to college and would like to know when it's available for sale, you can sign up to be notified here (and we make it easy to opt-out of the list at any time).