You’ve started looking into applying to college (yay!), and you realize you have two options for submitting your application: the Common App and the Coalition App. Which one do you use? Is one better than the other? Do colleges care which you use?
The tl;dr answer is … there’s no single, simple answer. Because … it depends. On what? If you’re asking, you’ve come to the right place.
This post will explore:
The pros and cons of both the Common App and Coalition App
Whether colleges have a preference for either application system
Whether you can use both the Common App and Coalition App when applying to college
Let’s get to it.
What Is the Common App?
The Common App is a free online application used by 900+ colleges and universities in the United States and 20 foreign countries. First-year and transfer students can use this online application to make the process of applying to multiple schools faster and easier.
Instead of making you fill out multiple college applications from scratch for each college, the Common App saves all the information that will be the same for every application you submit. For example, once you fill out your demographic data for the Common App, that information gets saved on your profile and appears on all your college applications.
What Is the Coalition App?
The Coalition App is also a free online application for first-year and transfer students to quickly and easily apply to colleges and universities across the United States. Like the Common App, the Coalition App stores your information and application materials in its system to be used on multiple college applications.
Currently, there are only 150+ colleges and universities on the Coalition App. Why? Because the Coalition only accepts colleges and universities that provide substantial financial support to lower-income and underrepresented students.
Pros & Cons: Common App vs. Coalition App
Like most choices in life, deciding between the Common App and the Coalition App comes down to more than personal preference (though that’s a biggie too). There are, naturally, pros and cons to using each, and we’ve outlined them below.
Common App
Pros
More colleges and universities. With 900+ colleges and universities in its system, the majority of the schools you’ll be applying to will use the Common App.
Most popular online application. Since this application system is more widely used, your teachers and guidance counselors are likely to be very familiar with the Common App. This usually means they'll have a better idea of how to help you complete and submit a great application through this system.
Reminders to stay on track of the application process. The Common App doesn’t only make it easy for you to fill out multiple applications at once. It also gives you frequent reminders of deadlines that make it easier to submit your applications on time.
Mobile application. The Common App’s mobile app makes it easy for you to work on your applications whenever and wherever you have access to the internet on your mobile device.
Free to use. There’s no fee to create a Common App account. However, to submit your applications, you’ll need to pay each school’s application fee, unless you qualify for a college application fee waiver.
Cons
Minimal. There are still some schools that don’t use the Common App, and instead use their own application portals, such as MIT or Georgetown. But after the University of Washington, Seattle began using the Common App (it used to only take Coalition), at this point, there’s very little reason not to go with the Common App.
Coalition App
Pros
Specially selected list of schools. The Coalition is committed to helping students find schools that have a history of providing substantial financial support for lower-income and underrepresented students. It only features colleges and universities that fit these criteria.
Easy to start working on applications early in high school. You can create a Coalition App and begin working on your college applications as early as the ninth grade. Using the Locker feature, you can save things like transcripts, awards, essays, and anything else you might want to include in your applications.
More room for creativity. The Coalition Locker also allows you to upload a wide range of multimedia files, including PDFs, images, videos, audio files, and presentations. Some schools on the Coalition App will allow you to support your application with these multimedia materials. If you’re a creative arts student or an enterprising student who wants to show off an impressive project, this feature is a benefit that’s not offered through the Common App.
More flexibility in how you report extracurricular activities. The Coalition App lets you report up to eight extracurricular activities—two fewer than the Common App with more space to explain your involvement and achievements in each activity.
Free to use. Similar to the Common App, it’s free to create an account on the Coalition App. You’ll only need to pay application fees set by each school, unless you qualify for application fee waivers.
Cons
Fewer colleges and universities. Since around 750 fewer schools use the Coalition App than the Common App, it’s much more likely you won’t find some of the schools on your college list on the Coalition App. For example, you can’t apply to Cornell University or the University of Southern California using the Coalition App.
No mobile app. The Coalition website is mobile-friendly, but it doesn't offer a mobile application for you to download on your phone.
Do Colleges Prefer the Common App or the Coalition App?
For colleges that use both the Common App and the Coalition App, college admission departments don’t have a preference between the two. They look at both applications equally and are much more concerned about the quality of your application materials.
So, if there’s no preference, which one should you use? That’s totally up to you!
If all of the schools on your college list are on both the Common App and Coalition App, just pick the one you feel the most comfortable with.
Can You Use Both the Common App and the Coalition App?
You can definitely use both the Common App and the Coalition App to apply to colleges. But is it in your best interest to use both? Probably not.
Remember: The major benefit of the Common App and the Coalition App is that they help you save time. Once you fill in the general information and application materials for one school, everything is saved and automatically appears on all your other applications.
And since in 2022, the one school that was formerly exclusively listed on the Coalition App—The University of Washington, Seattle—will begin accepting the Common App, you don’t really have any reason to use both portals. (Unless you max out the number of schools allowed on one. But we wouldn’t recommend that…)
Need Help with Your College Applications?
Like we said: Colleges and universities don’t care whether you use the Common App or the Coalition App. Want to know why? Because the application materials are pretty much the same on both application systems. It’s what you put in your application that really matters, not which vehicle you choose to submit.
So, whether it’s deciding what to put in your Activities List, whether and how to use the Additional Information section, or (perhaps most importantly) what to write about in your Personal Statement and how to use the essay to show the many ways you’d make a meaningful impact on your future college campus, make sure you're putting together the best application possible. How can you do that exactly? We can help. Check out our resources that break down each part of the college application process.
Here are a few you can check out right now:
Special thanks to Ameer Drane for contributing to this post.
Ameer is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about college admissions and career development. Prior to freelancing, Ameer worked for three years as a college admissions consultant at a Hong Kong-based education center, helping local high school students prepare and apply for top colleges and universities in the US. He has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from UCLA. When he’s not working, Ameer loves traveling, weight lifting, writing, reading, and learning foreign languages. He currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand.
Top values: Growth / Diversity / Empathy
