Making Multiple Common App Versions

Applying to College
1

<p>The Common Application should generally be completed once, with identical copies sent to all colleges. You should create a new version if you wish to correct an error discovered after submission or provide new information not available when you first submitted the application. It is not necessary to "customize" your Common Application for individual colleges. Individual college supplements and supplemental essay questions should be used to provide special information to different colleges. Below are the steps necessary to create an alternate version.</p>

<p>Step1: You must submit the Common Application to at least one institution first. You cannot create an alternate version until this has occurred.</p>

<p>Step 2: You must log out of the application then go to this special URL:
<a href="https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Default.aspx?allowcopy=true%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Default.aspx?allowcopy=true&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>and login using your existing User Name and Password.</p>

<p>Step 3: Upon login you will be taken to the 'Common Application' page, where you will see information about the application you have already submitted. The ability to create an alternate version of your submitted Common Application is now activated, and you should click on the ‘Replicate’ link to make an alternate version of your submitted application. When this is complete, a second version will be visible on your screen and a special drop down list will appear in the upper right corner of your application. You can use this drop down to move between application versions.</p>

<p>All data from your original version of your Common Application will be transferred to your alternate version, with the exception of any documents that you uploaded. You may edit any of this information before you submit it to another institution.</p>

<p>You only need to go to the special URL the first time you create an alternative version. Thereafter, additional application versions can be made by going to the ‘Common Application’ section within your original Common Application and using the ‘Replicate’ link. You may make up to 10 versions, including the original version. You only need your original User Name and Password to access all versions.</p>

<p>When you create the first alternate version of your application you will see a simple confirmation message. If you create any additional alternate versions of your application you will need to complete two affirmation statements then click the 'OK' button. You may also click the 'Cancel' button to not create the new alternate version.</p>

<p>You will have a separate My Colleges page for each application version. Each institution can only be on the My Colleges list of one application version, and you can have a total of 20 institutions across all versions. </p>

<p>You can move an institution from one version to a different version at any time prior to submitting the Common App to that institution by selecting the college on the My Colleges page and clicking on the "Move College" button.</p>

2

<p>I’m not sure I understand the purpose of this thread, but it seems to me that unless you’re going to lie to one or more colleges, you don’t need to make an “alternate version.”</p>

3

<p>Not sure of the purpose either. </p>

<p>However, it’s not a lie to change things like your essay or test scores (eg. for Score Choice vs. non-Score Choice schools). There are valid reasons to send slightly different applications to different schools.</p>

4

<p>Ah, thanks entomom. Still, unless you personally know the admissions officer, I really can’t see how it would help to change your essay, because anyone might be looking for anything in the essay, and of you take what one person wants out of the essay you send to them, and put in something someone else wants, you’re only hurting your chances (unless you can send the same form to several schools.)</p>

5

<p>You change your essay because supplemental applications vary between schools and sometimes it helps to switch and modify essays between the main CA and supplemental essays due to restricted prompts on the supplementals.</p>

<p>iSpike, this may not make sense to you right now because you’re not applying yet, it will all become clear next year when you start writing essays.</p>

6

<p>No, I’m not applying yet, but thanks for the insight.</p>

7

<p>At your ED school, you may want to emphasize something specific about you that uniquely aligns to your top choice school, say the science part of your background, so your essay may focus on your interest in science as it applies to that college. For all your other applications, perhaps you want to focus on your interest in volunteering in the community and want to show your insight from those experiences. Both are completely valid, but highlight different aspects of your personality. The same goes for your EC’s … you may want to emphasize your piano or musical theater background more in the ED school, but in the rest of the applications you may want to emphasize more the sports or outdoor activities that played a big role in your life. I made these examples up, but there are valid reasons to have two different common apps.</p>

8

<p>

As an example, I created two versions for my EA schools and my RD schools, so now I have another two months to keep editing and perfecting my app.</p>

9

<p>I just posted this for people who found errors in their applications or wanted to make certain changes. I often hear or see questions about changing one’s commonapp, so I just posted this for those people that want to make alternate versions.</p>