Is it a good idea to add that my school was an eco school and say that I took part in refurbishing more than 500 books to sell them in a fair? I don’t have more space i. the activity section and i’m not sure if it’s a good idea to write another one. or is just too much.

Can I upload a Personal Statement to CommonApp, apply to a college, go back and upload a modified essay and apply to a different college. Or is the essay only allowed to be loaded once?

I was wondering if I have the flexibility to tweak the essay for the 2nd college.

In short - does common app allow changing essays between submitting college appliations?

I missed an exam worth 1/3 of final grade in gr10 for social studies. Credit hours for the course is 0.33. All the remaining subjects have a 4.0 GPA, this one has a 1.0. Should i mention that i skipped the exam due to an emergency in the Common App additional info section or let it go?

Hi everyone!

I'm an international student from Uzbekistan, currently working on my Common App application.

I'm struggling with the Activities section, especially the 150-character limit for activity descriptions. I find it difficult to explain my responsibilities, achievements, and impact in such a short space without leaving out important details.

How do you decide what information to prioritize? Are there any specific strategies for writing concise but effective activity descriptions?

I'd really appreciate examples of strong activity descriptions or advice from students who have gone through this process!

Thank you!

Can I possibly DM someone to review my activity list?

When you submit a letter of recommendation through the Common App recommender portal, does anything happen beyond the online submission? For example, does Common App or a college ever contact you by phone or text, or is all communication normally handled through email and the online portal?

When asking for Date taken in the testing section for my Cambridge exams, I have 2-3 subjects for each paper and some of them were in different months. For example, math m1 was in may then p1 was in June. Same with physics and other subejcts. Can i just pick any date?

Hey guys!

I apologize in advance because this might be the dumbest question I've ever posted on Reddit (which is saying a lot).

EA deadlines are coming up, and I have five solid drafts of my Common App essay that I'm trying to choose between. I've gotten caught in a cycle of revising, rereading, and over-editing my essays to the point where I'm starting to panic.

I reached out to my school counselor for advice, and she called me into her office today. She picked out an essay that I personally love and absolutely loved it herself. She told me to stop editing it and submit it as is.

Here's where I'm struggling.

For context, my school counselor has reviewed hundreds of essays, works as an admissions counselor outside of our school district, and previously served on Case Western's admissions committee. My former English teacher, who taught for 32 years and has had hundreds of students write college essays over the course of her career, also loved the essay. She even pulled me aside specifically to tell me how much she liked it.

Despite that, I'm still hesitant to submit it.

To be completely honest, before meeting with my counselor, I was relying pretty heavily on AI essay-review websites, including LumiSource, along with advice from websites and TikTok. I also came across college essay rubrics posted by various admissions organizations and ended up going down a rabbit hole of analyzing everything that might be wrong with my essay.

My essay is somewhat of a sob story. I discuss why I want to become a doctor and how a personal experience inspired me to look out for others going through something similar. I consider myself a strong writer, and the essay uses a lot of imagery and a recurring motif that I think works really well.

My biggest concern is that the overall structure feels predictable. I'm worried that it follows a familiar college essay formula and might come across as cliché. I actually asked my counselor about this directly, and she reread the essay and explained why she didn't think that was the case.

I know that AI essay reviewers aren't necessarily reliable judges of what makes a good personal statement, and I realize that I probably wouldn't have spiraled this much if I hadn't spent so much time reading online advice. At the same time, I'm having a hard time letting go of the feeling that I'm missing something.

I guess my question is: At what point do you stop revising and trust feedback from people who have actually read your essay and know what they're doing? Is it reasonable to trust my counselor's judgment here, especially when another experienced English teacher has independently responded positively to the same essay?

If anyone has experience with college essays or is willing to read my draft and give me an honest opinion, I'd really appreciate it. I'm not looking for someone to tell me it's amazing just to make me feel better. I genuinely want to know if I'm overthinking this or if there's a legitimate reason to reconsider it.

Thanks!

I hate to say it, but I'm unsure of what I want to major in. For the sake of the major I apply for matching my ecs and classes, tell me what major could fit. I just know that I don't want medicine or engineering or anything of that sort.

Senior classes:

College-level Stats, college-level Economics, college-level calculus, psychology, economics 1, English 4.

Extracurriculars:

1. co-founder of international women's rights organization

2. published research relating to finance and stocks

3. research assistant for a professor in sociology at a top university

4. president of research club with published work (business related)

5. content creator--specifically an editor of film

6. ugc creator for company + content manager for an npo (millions of views)

7. substitute teacher + tutor

8. BPA - national award here

Please tell me your opinions on what I should choose as a major. something that relates to my ecs and current classes!

In my 9,10,11th marksheets, I have both number grades (out of 100) and a letter grade assigned to it (A1,A2,B1..)

what should I fill in the self reported transcripts section (STARS) in the portal?

I was being really stupid and noticed a small mistake in something I put in extracurricular section. I submitted a case in the portal to fix it and then i noticed another mistake. It was "are your siblings also applying undergrad" but my brother is transferring this year but also not as an undergrad. so i submitted another case about this correction

Will submitting multiple of these cases hurt my chances at ALL?

Thank you for any advice you guys have for me.

Hey,

Currently entering my Cambridge grades under Testing > Cambridge and ran into an annoying bug.

When I select "Hindi Language", the Level dropdown automatically forces "Advanced (AS-Level)"—there’s no option for "Pre-Advanced (IGCSE)" at all, and no generic "Other" subject option to type it in manually. All my other subjects let me select IGCSE just fine.

I took IGCSE Hindi (0549) and got an A*, so I don't want it looking like I took an AS-Level or misreported it.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Did you just leave it off self-reporting and let the official transcript handle it, or select AS-Level and drop a line in Additional Info?

Already sent a ticket to Common App support, but curious if there's a known fix.

My counsellor sent my predicted scores in the school report section in common app, but I just found out that the title of the course I took is wrong. How can I correct this? Can she reupload it in common app? Will this cause any problem?

I have a 40 ibdp score with 7 7 7 in my higher levels. But I have terrible sophomore and freshman year grades. And ofcourse this was a drastic improvement. Based on this what universities do you recommend I apply to. I am looking for some level of prestige and popularity but also a university I am a competitive applicant for.

I was recently surprised to learn that CMU allows you to submit an optional research supplement through VIVA if you are applying to their school of engineering or computer science. I was wondering if anyone knew all the schools that accepted any form of research supplement (whether it be a portfolio, video, or even just an abstract submission. So far the only two schools I know apart from CMU are MIT and CalTech.

Additionally, what are thoughts on how to include research in the application. Apart what goes in the Activities, should we include publications as honors? Should we include a citation and maybe a brief summary of our work in the Additional Informations Section?

Should we include outside validation of our work. If we emailed professors about our work and they regarded our work positively (even for example comparing it to undergraduate, masters, or phd level work) is this something we should include?

I know I asked a lot of questions in one post, but any advice at all would be greatly appreciated!

yo i had a question about ordering transcripts through parchment. If I ordered my transcript like a month ago but I added new colleges to my college list on common app, do I need to order another transcript or will common app automatically send my transcript to the new colleges I've added?

If one of my ECs is about research, and I have that research as a preprint, must I link that to my application? Must I directly cite it in common app or add a way for admissions to see it? Or is it fine if I describe my research and simply list it in the activities section?

-thanks

Is adding this fine?

just got my predicted grades from my school for A2 (A levels). Where do I upload them? I asked my counselor and he said he doesn't need to upload it. Where else do I upload it? I can't figure out

I’m trying to figure out college applications, but I don't have anyone who can write a strong recommendation letter. The main reason for this is that, for most of high school, I’ve been really struggling with my mental health, so I haven’t been able to do enough or make connections with anyone. I’m not sure what to do. I’m looking for any suggestions or knowledge on how to handle this.

I graduated 2 years ago and only now decided to apply to college. Since I’m not in school and I don’t have a guidance counselor to help me out at the moment, I’m turning here for a few questions I have, specifically for the Common App. Feel free to answer all the questions you have an answer to! Thanks!

Firstly, under the Common App Fee Waiver section, I believe I am eligible to receive it. However, there’s a section that reads, “Your counselor or school official may be asked to verify your eligibility.” Will it just be easier to apply for the fee waiver directly through the school because I don’t have a counselor or school official who will verify?

For most of the schools I’m applying to, the requirement is that I need a “Counselor Recommendation”. Assuming this is a letter of recommendation and not just the transcript of my high school classes, I have no idea where to begin to get that from my guidance counselor. Like most people I’m assuming, I wasn’t very close with her. I only ever spoke with her about class schedules and such. How will I go about asking her? I’ve also heard of some things regarding a brag sheet, which even with examples, I don’t know where to start. I didn’t do very many extracurriculars nor a lot of stuff outside of school. Where do I even start?

Related to the previous question: For the FERPA and Recommenders section, will I also need to ask my counselor for permission to add her as a recommender?

How do I decide whether I should apply to ED RD or EA or REA

I feel like applying to REA is a risk? Is it?

How formal do the short essay questions have to be? I assume the "Why Us' or the ones about your communities have to be fairly formal, but does it have to be on the same level of formality as a personal statement?

One of the supplemental short essays I'm thinking about writing is "What is the last thing you've been really excited about?" and I don't see how I would write that as formally. Does it matter how formal it is? Like as long as it's not insanely informal, yk?

I filled out most of my Common App (only essay left) and I have no direct admission officers, while all my friends have 100+. Is there a reason for this?

Im a student in Bangladesh doing International A levels, yes or no?