<p>I am new to this. Is Common Application the best ay to fill out application or fill them out separately for each university? Are these processes treated in the same respect? How do we pay the application fee? Is it cheaper? What if some university waives the application fee? Ho can I enter this information? Thanks</p>
<p>All Common App schools promise to treat the Common App the same as their own. My son used Common App wherever possible, and he was accepted to all his EA schools (don’t know about the rest). For Common App you pay the fee through Common App. The non-Common-App schools he applied to were free, but I guess it would probably depend on the school.</p>
<p>My suggestions to make everything easier:
[ul]use Common App wherever possible. It makes it much easier to fill out the common stuff [/ul]
[ul]Recycle essays, but PROOFREAD them to make sure you didn’t leave anything inappropriate in them for different schools. [/ul]
[ul]apply to lots of EA schools - if you get accepted, it will make the spring more bearable. If you get rejected, it might give you a reality check so you can redo the later apps better. [/ul]</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that many colleges ONLY have the Common App. So in many cases, you will not be able to choose between the Common App and a school specific app. The only college that I can think of off the top of my head that does do that is Princeton, which has like three different apps and you can choose which one you want to use.</p>
<p>GeekMom63 posted some really great tips. You’re free to use any application they’ll accept, but the Common App is treated equally, so I’d save myself the time and use the Common App.</p>
<p>Geekmom63 - What are ‘EA’ schools, help.</p>
<p>EA is Early Action - which are generally due November 1st, and tell you by mid-December. Make sure to apply to a few rolling admission schools too (state schools). And do CommonApp, because it’s a waste of time to fill out your name and address over and over again if you can just do it once. You won’t be able to re-use your essays depending on how many supplements you have to write, however.</p>
<p>Thanks folks. Let me summarize this then. The best approach is to use Common Apps. Agreed. The only drawback is that I can not make custom made essay to suit each and every school. I need to write a generic essay for each school. I have also heard several schools waive the application fee for highly decorated students. How can this be weaved as part of the Common App process?</p>
<p>Also, I assume the SAT, SAT2, and AP scores are still sent out for each schools via CB. There is no real savings, ugh. College Board wants to savor for money. LOL!</p>