The College Application

Lauren just completed her first quarter of her senior year of high school.  She has known from a young age that she has wanted to go to college.  At one time, she wanted to go to a school in California, but has since decided that she doesn't want to be more than five hours away (one-way) from us.  Narrowing down the schools she wanted to apply to took a while. Once Lauren came up with her three top schools, then it was time to start working on the applications.  There is an application called "The Common Application" (Common App for short) that is used by several hundred colleges and universities.  Basically, you fill out all the information once and it is used in addition to the individual college's requirements. Two of the colleges Lauren wanted to apply to didn't use the Common App, but the third school did. When it came time to start filling out the applications, we did the easiest application first and went ahead and sent it to the school. We found out about a week ago that she was admitted and they have offered some scholarship money.  The second school's application was a little more time consuming, but that one has also already been sent.  I thought since the third school accepted the Common App, it would be a relatively easy process.  Boy, was I wrong. They required quite a bit of supplemental materials, one of which was to submit two essays.  I won't go into any details, but let's just say getting those essays done was a test of patience. The Common App itself is pretty involved - there are several sections to it and it is very detailed.  A bit of advice, start working on it earlier, rather than later, it is time consuming. All three colleges she applied to had application fees and two of the colleges needed the ACT scores sent to them, which also had a fee attached.  When we got that third application done, I thought we could rest for a little bit. Nope, Lauren said since we spent so much time on the Common App, she wants to apply to a couple more colleges!!  I think I need to hold on tight, I have a feeling I'm going to be on this college application "road" for a while!