My daughter will be applying to colleges in the Fall and we will be having our initial meeting with the college counselor next week.She just sent an email explaining that the common application will be available August 1 st and asking each student to create an account and then send her their login Information ( User Name and Password). I don’t remember ever giving out this Information with my other children. Is this a common request? Any reason not to give it?
I would wait and see why she thinks she needs it. I would be reluctant to give it out without a very good (to you) reason.
And I would be surprised if this were a common request.
I would not give it out. Ever. If a counselor asked my kid for that, I’d say to make an appointment and come by my house to see the info on the common app - just to make it clear that the request is completely out of line to ask for a password to a student’s account.
That’s an unreasonable request. I wouldn’t give my login information to ANYONE. That would give them access to private information and would allow them to make changes to the application. Not saying the teacher would make changes, but why would you give her the ability to do so? I’m curious to hear her reasoning for wanting login and passwords.
It also would violate the terms and conditions of the the common app site…
“You will be responsible for the confidentiality and use of your username and password and agree not to transfer or resell your use of or access to the Site to any third party.”
If this is a private counselor you hired, give it to her. She will log in and check that there are no mistakes in the application before it is sent. That’s what you hire a college counselor for.
Ask why. Not just from the counselor but from administration if it is a school counselor. If it is a private one, think twce about using her depending on the reason.
I would absolutely NOT give out this information. Period.
The college counselor doesn’t need to see the common ap. The college counselor needs to see what your kid plans to PUT on the Common Application…essays, lists of activities, etc.
Don’t give them your log in information.
As noted above…it is in violation of the Common Ap agreement to give your access info to others.
If the college counselor you hire wants to see your common ap, she should make one of her appointment visits to do so…with your student and a computer. Your student can log on, and show the counselor.
This is not a private counselor. It is the school counselor In a small private school.
Inappropriate.
Say no, she should use her own login.
Thanks everyone for your input. It didn’t seem right to me and I see that most of you agree.
I wouldn’t assume evil intent.
Up until this next Common App cycle there has been no way to print out a Common App until it has been submitted. Many, many students make mistakes that a counselor might catch. Starting this year students will be able to print out their Common App section by section. I think many good college counselors will be reviewing the Activities and Awards section, though they should never be changing it.
I think the counselor needs to justify this request to parents and students. I have long said - in regard to many situations - that something counterintuitive isn’t necessarily wrong or untrue, but it needs more substantiation. I would say that you have a perfect right to question the counselor’s need for a password. My sons attended a private boarding school and this was never demanded from them. Ask whether your child can arrange appointments to review his or her Common App with the counselor. I have to think that this counselor is a little naive, considering the number of applications that get submitted over Christmas break.
So why can’t the student meet with the school counselor…who presumably HAS a computer…and let the STUDENT log into their common application? Why would the school counselor need to be doing this in the absence of the student?
@arabrab We were able to print common app prior to submission. I am sure because with applying to many schools we went through a lot of paper and ink printing drafts prior to final submission, then printing the true final.
@thumper1 – My guess (and it is just a guess) is that appointments are highly inefficient if you’re trying to review docs from many students. Hard to keep students to a 10 minute appointment during the college process.
@blueskies2day – I am not aware of any way to print out the Common App until it was complete and ready for submission. Until that point, there was no good way to print out a section that had response boxes like Activities because only one was “open” at a time. When the Common App rep announced that there would now be a preview print option section by section there were cheers at the counselors’ conference I attended, so it was a pretty commonly perceived deficit.
It is not uncommon to find that students have entered in quite a lot of Common App data without use of any upper case letters. Several admission officers also mentioned that it was not uncommon, and not appreciated.
Obviously, I don’t know this counselor and don’t know why she would have asked, but I wouldn’t assume nefarious purposes.
Prior to last year you could print prior to the submission step but last year the entire application had to be complete before the print function was enabled. As @arabrab said, that has changed this year and students will again be able to print sections of the CA for review prior to the submission step. As for providing a password to a counselor, I too recommend asking why. As far as I know, counselors have their own access and use Naviance to upload recommendations etc. if the school uses that service. As an independent counselor, my partners and I will sit with our students and go over the completed CA to review for error and omissions, if requested. Trust me, kids make mistakes. One year we noted that a young man input his birthday incorrectly; he and his parents had reviewed the application and their eyes saw what their brains knew…we caught the mistake.
Met with the counselor today and she said that she finds it helpful to be able to access the application and review on her own schedule and she would not ever change any information on her own. Communicating with students by phone/ email after school hours is common and it is helpful to be able to log in to application Many kids do not have someone who is able to help with this and she offers this as a service to our small private school. I think her intentions were good and she understood when I told her that I wanted to keep the login Information private.
Hi @arabrab We are both sort of right. You can print preview but only from the submission tab - you print it and then abandon submission by clicking the x in the corner, which we did over and over till it was right. Because it is a pdf, you can select just certain pages to print. Here are the instructions:
How to submit and preview?
You have two ways to submit your application.
From the dashboard, click on the name of the school and click submit. The first step is a print preview. If you are satisfied with the preview, please click continue on the bottom and you will be routed to the school’s payment page. Once the payment is complete, you need to sign, date, and submit.
Once the application has been submitted, you will be able to submit the writing supplement.
The second way to submit is from the My Colleges tab. Click the school’s name and select “Submission - Common App.” The first step is a print preview. If you are satisfied with the preview, please click continue on the bottom and you will be routed to the school’s payment page. Once the payment has been completed you need to sign, date, and submit.
The only way to preview is through the submission menu. If you are not satisfied with your PDF preview, click the “X” at the top right corner to close the preview and abandon the submission. The application will not be submitted until you sign, date, and click submit in step 3.
There is no reason at all that the counselor needs the login info for your daughter’s common app. There is a section on the common app that asks for the GC’s name and email. Once the app is done and submitted, the GC gets an email from common app to upload recs etc. Same for any teacher that will write a rec letter. They get an invite from common app. Our school uses Naviance so this process is taken care of this way.