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College Application Checklist

Medium 24 items · 6 weeks
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testuser Published 1 week ago
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Early decision and early action deadlines at many colleges fall on November 1 or November 15, so October is when a high school senior’s list of colleges turns into submitted applications.

The steps below take one student from a final college list to the confirmation emails, with most applications going through the Common App. A parent can work through it alongside them. The financial aid steps at the end need both of them.

Ask for recommendation letters first, before the essay is finished. Teachers write letters for many students in the same few weeks, and a teacher asked in late October for a November 1 deadline may not have time to write a good one.

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  1. Put every college's deadline, application type, essays and fee in one list
  2. Decide on early decision, early action or regular decision for each college — Early decision is binding: if admitted, you agree to attend and withdraw your other applications. Early action is not binding.
  3. Run each college's net price calculator — The published cost and what your family would pay can be far apart.
  4. Ask your teachers for recommendation letters — Check how many each college wants. Give each teacher your deadlines and a short note on what you did in their class.
  5. Meet your school counselor to request transcripts and the school report
  6. Create your Common App account, or the college's own portal account
  7. Use one email address you check every day for all of it — Colleges send portal logins and missing-document notices by email.
  8. Invite your recommenders through the application portal
  9. Write the main essay
  10. Have one person read it for clarity, then revise — One reader with clear notes helps more than five with conflicting ones.
  11. Write each college's supplemental essays
  12. Fill in the activities section — The Common App has room for ten activities. Put the ones you spent the most time on first.
  13. Decide whether to send test scores to each test-optional college
  14. Send official SAT or ACT scores to the colleges that need them — Order them from the College Board or ACT, not your school.
  15. Check which colleges want an interview or a portfolio
  16. Pay the application fees, or ask your counselor about fee waivers
  17. Preview each application before you submit — Text pasted from a word processor can lose its formatting, and the preview shows what the college will see.
  18. Submit a few days before the deadline — Portals slow down on deadline day.
  19. Set up each college's applicant portal from the email it sends — The portal shows whether your transcript, scores and letters have arrived. The application is not complete until they all have.
  20. Create StudentAid.gov accounts for the student and a parent
  21. Submit the FAFSA as soon as you can after it opens — Some colleges and states award part of their aid first come, first served.
  22. Submit the CSS Profile to colleges that require it — Many private colleges use it to award their own aid. Each college's financial aid page gives its deadline.
  23. Thank your recommenders
  24. Keep your grades up through senior year — Colleges see your first-semester senior grades in the mid-year report, and an offer can depend on final grades.
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