<p>Okay--I should know the answer to this but either I never did or I've forgotten.</p>
<p>DS#2 will be applying RD to his Dream School this year (this school has no EA/ED, unfortunately). He will also be applying EA to several safeties (Dream School's decisions will not be out until late March). My question is about the essay. DS wants to get going on the common app fairly early, and I believe will write a decent essay. However, his first semester English class includes some college app essay tips/help. I can envision a situation where he gets closer to Dream School's RD deadline and wants to spiff up his essay.</p>
<p>Q: Once the common app has been submitted to a school, can you change the essay before submitting to other schools?</p>
<p>When I did it two years ago, you could but it was very annoying to do. You has to make a secondary app for that school or something. It was a horrible process. I hope they’ve fixed it since then.</p>
<p>mm–are you sure? Not that I don’t trust you, but Dream School’s alumni liaison person said that once the common app was saved you couldn’t change it. (Didn’t make much sense to me, though–maybe she thought I meant changing the essay and then re-submitting it to the same school?)</p>
<p>mathmom is correct, but it is not an easy or intuitive process. If you look on the commonapp site, there are instructions for having different versions of the application.</p>
<p>Thanks for the confirmation. I believe the focus on the first round of applications will be timeliness–these are schools he should be accepted to. He’ll be trying to come up with something Hemingway-esque before hitting that send button for Dream School.</p>
<p>(And if I might highjack my own thread–does anyone happen to have any experience with submitting scores after sending in the common app? DS was advised that adding some SAT IIs to his application would strengthen it. He’s taking two in October but a third subject test he’ll be taking isn’t offered until December. I guess that third one might be too late for his EA applications, but will they be counted as part of his RD applications?)</p>