Common Application Has Started

Common Application, the online application system used by over 900 US colleges and universities including all the top ones (except MIT*) such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, has been open for 2022 entry since Aug 1, 2021.

Candidates can just fill in their profile details, GPA, honors and extracurriculars once on the system even when they are applying for multiple universities, instead of repeating the same steps on the forms or the online system of each school. The system can also help candidates track important deadlines.

Candidates are usually asked to choose one of the 7 Common Application essay prompts to write an article within 650 words. The prompts remained the same during previous cycles, but the 2021-2022 cycle sees a new change with one of them being changed to “Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?”

More universities are added to the system in the 2021-2022 cycle, including University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which ranks 82nd in the world in QS World University Rankings 2022, and 60th in the US News 2021 Best Global Universities Rankings, and 30th and 47th in the US in these two rankings respectively.

In addition to these two major changes, other changes are made to make the application more inclusive, including the removal of the questions on the school discipline, the military discharge, and religious preference, as well as the revisions to the citizenship, family, and geography questions and the sex/gender questions.

Norton House has helped many students successfully enroll in their target universities in the US. If you need any advice on application or help with essay writing, please feel free to let us know.

*MIT does not use Common Application but its own system.