College Application Process

The college application process requires students to be highly organized and many students need support through this process. College tuition costs are on the rise, and admission deadlines are earlier due to the recent increase in student applications.

FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE APPLICATION DEADLINES

Each four-year college/university has different application deadlines for early action/decision application, regular application, test requirements, financial aid, and scholarship decisions. It is very important to check the website for your prospective college/university for all of their required admission deadlines. (Please note, University of Washington Seattle's application deadline is November 15th.)

COLLEGE APPLICATION TOOLS

We encourage all students to utilize the tools provided by Big Future through collegeboard.org to help them stay organized through the process of making the deadlines and compiling all the necessary paperwork for college applications.

Year after year, high school students fill out applications to over two thousand public and private colleges and universities. The average high school student will fill out 8-10 college applications in their quest to be accepted to college, and filling out all of those applications can be a lot to manage. Luckily, there are two applications that allow you to apply to multiple schools all in one place – the Common Application and the Coalition Application.

Taken from: https://www.veritasprep.com/college/common-app-vs-coalition-app/

COMMON APPLICATION

Many colleges now use the Common Application to save time and be more efficient. This allows students to send one application to all colleges that accept the Common Application. You can check on the college's website under Admissions to see if they are a part of the Common Application pool. There is usually an application processing fee attached to each application so please be aware of this if you apply to multiple schools. (For more information regarding the Common Application, please visit the official website at www.commonapp.org)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE COMMON APPLICATION & CHS STUDENTS.

If your are a CHS senior using the Common Application... The SECONDARY SCHOOL REPORT (School Counselor Form and Transcript) CHS can support these documents electronically. Just make sure you list your counselor and teacher by E-mail correctly to ensure you have accurately requested this information. Follow up with your requested teachers and counselor to verify that they are willing to recommend you and they have enough time to make sure your forms are complete.

The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success is a relatively new application option for college candidates. Launched in 2016, the Coalition App is a free platform, similar to the Common App, that schools can join to offer their applications on. Using MyCoalition, students can begin exploring colleges and compiling personal and school-related achievements as early as ninth grade. Over 150 schools use Coalition for College. https://www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/

COLLEGE ESSAY / PERSONAL STATEMENT

If students are applying to colleges that use their own application, it is crucial that the student has developed effective responses to the essay questions. Our staff is willing to help edit these responses and help students through the process as long as we are given a reasonable amount of time before the deadline.