<p>My daughter's application list is very short--just five schools, and one doesn't take the Common Application anyway. Three of the others, as far as I can tell, give you the option to use their own application or the Common App.</p>
<p>I can see there are advantages to filling out some information just once for those schools that take the Common App, but are there disadvantages? For example, an inflexible format that makes it hard to tell your story if it doesn't fit into a neat box? </p>
<p>I thought, when I glanced at it, that the way they have the section for extracurricular activities set up looked like it might be hard to convey what she's spent her time on.</p>
<p>I also read that if you use the Common App supplement for a particular school on her list, it has a hard character limit on one of the essays, whereas if you use their own application, that doesn't happen. They don't want you to go on forever, but they don't cut you off after a certain character limit.</p>
<p>With a list this short, might it be better just to use the individual applications?</p>
<p>Used to think so but don’t any longer. Common app and universal apps are fine to use. They also adjusted it a few yrs ago such that you can save and then make changes to apps for schools that might want a different type essay (this is from memory). Fine to use, and easy to submit.</p>
<p>My son started to fill one out two years ago and ran into a problem. On the section where you report test scores, it asks you to list ALL test scores. He didn’t want to do that, so ended up using the colleges’ forms, which didn’t require all the scores.</p>
<p>He also had a supplemental one page resume, where he listed all his activities.</p>
<p>I don’t think there are any disadvantages. My kids used the common app and each sent an additional activities resume to add additional information.</p>
<p>Do you think they look at those supplemental resumes? It’s not that she’s done so much that it won’t FIT, it’s that what she’s done doesn’t lend itself to the format they’ve laid out.</p>
<p>She refuses to take any test more than once, so that won’t be an issue…</p>
<p>“Do you think they look at those supplemental resumes?”</p>
<p>They are exactly for the kids that have “done what doesn’t lend itself to the format they’ve laid out”…</p>
<p>Our counselor calls it the “but I” factor…add the resume if the kid is a “but I did this, and that, and I can’t explain it on the common app format”</p>
<p>It can be hard to convey ECs on the Common App (and a lot of the apps with little space), especially if something unconventional.</p>
<p>One idea would be to have an essay that gives more detail on the most interesting one. My son did that. He described how he got hooked on composing when he didn’t want to be on stage for the sophomore Shakespeare play and opted instead to be the Music Director. It was an awseome activiy (he went back and did it twice more), hard to compress into a tiny line.</p>
<p>The Common App. people have stated that if the applicant wants to use Score Choice, it’s perfectly reasonable to leave the Common App. score section BLANK. The official scores are obviously submitted separately.</p>
<p>^I think that’s actually the biggest benefit. It probably increases the likelihood that teachers will have the time to write so recommendations for their students.</p>
<p>However, one disadvantage that I noticed was the section for listing AP exam and Sat II scores. It’s seems short. I’m hoping that it expands in electronic form (?) Anyone know?</p>