You are applying to college! Hooray for reaching this exciting time in your life. For most people, this is the first time you get to make big decisions about how you want to spend your time, what you want to study, and where you would like to live.

True, the above perspective is a sunny and optimistic one. You might be excited about the opportunities, and at the same time there are also lots of steps in the college application process.

There are many tasks and often confusion about how to apply for college, like understanding how to find colleges that will be a great fit for you. And there’s also the task of figuring out how to pay for college. Right now, you might have a big, nebulous, college application-shaped cloud floating over your head at all times.

This post aims to help you figure out how to make those clouds turn into blue skies so that you can apply to the colleges of your dreams! We’ll also include some tips for creating incredible college applications that will be sure to highlight your strengths. Read on to learn more about how to research colleges, how to create a stellar college list, and how to stand out on your applications—in general, how to apply to college!

Getting Started + Staying Organized

Being organized is a step anyone can take toward achieving their academic goals.

Are you ready for the good news? Organization is a skill that can be cultivated and improved over time. Anyone can develop new helpful habits, especially if they follow evidenced-based strategies about how to do so. James Clear’s Atomic Habits blog has some excellent resources for both habit development and avoiding procrastination.

CEG also has some incredible tools that can help you stay organized:

Check out the application timeline in the family handbook
Use organizers to build a balanced college list with the ultimate college list research tracker
Read this post about how to overcome procrastination.

Before you apply: Understand Your Strengths and Interests

You will thrive in college when you are in a setting where you have access to the courses, majors, activities, opportunities, and overall environment that will best meet your needs and help you to reach your goals.

But first you need to know what those strengths, interests, and goals are. Ask yourself these questions:

What do I love?
What am I good at?
What path am I trying to pursue?
What directions can I take that will help me feel a sense of purpose, connection, and accomplishment?

In particular, we love the resources created by Dr. Steven R. Antonoff that support you in your quest to identify qualities and values that you are looking for in a college, and learn more about what they are looking for in you. The free tools at Corsava are also really helpful!
These are big questions, and so you might need some tools in order to best understand yourself. This post on how to choose a college major contains some wonderful tools for understanding yourself and the range of opportunities that colleges provide. We also recommend taking O*Net’s Interest Profiler to better understand how your interests relate to the world of work.

Sharpen Your Research Skills and Build a Balanced List

You will want to be a savvy researcher and consumer of information in order to choose the right college. You will want to keep track of majors, costs, application timelines and requirements, and so much more. As mentioned, a college research tracker can support this process (or use this as a guide to create your own!).

Consider who your trusted resources of information are and how you can find out more. Generally, in-person college visits are highly informative, so read more about How To Get the Most Out of Your College Visit and check out this list of 60+ Examples of Questions to Ask on a College Tour.

When colleges keep track of who visits, reads emails, clicks on links, attends information sessions, and more, this is called tracking potential applicants’ demonstrated interest. Many colleges favor applicants who demonstrate their interest, and this Inside Higher Ed study shares more about this practice.

If you can’t visit schools in person, fear not! Start your research by hearing student voices at unigo.com, continue your research at www.collegexpress.com to check out fun lists and collections, and then check out virtual tours at CampusReel.org.

You can learn even more by reading this incredible post about How to Research Colleges (Without Visiting A Campus).

After you’ve spent a lot of time understanding yourself and doing research, you are ready to craft a list that is going to create opportunities for you. Think big! Cast a wide net. The best place to start is by reading CEG’s 3 Step guide on how to choose a college . If you love data, we find that a great place to start is at the aptly named site collegedata.com.

Above all, please take the time to consider why we consistently beg you to avoid relying on rankings to shape your college list.

There is a huge body of evidence that shows that how engaged you are in your college experience matters more than how selective/famous/elite/prestigious the college you attend is.

So, what does that mean exactly? Students who seek out internships and other hands-on learning experiences that allow them to apply their learning in real-life settings, who work with mentors who know them well and encourage them, and students who truly make the most of their college environment and opportunities will thrive after college.

There is absolutely no guarantee that students who attend a “highly ranked” college will thrive after college. In fact, this study found “no significant relationship between a school’s selectivity and student learning, future job satisfaction, or well-being.”

Frank Bruni, who wrote a book called Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times proposing a new way of thinking about rankings, complete with a new tool that allows you to build your own system of rankings that reflects what you value in your college experience.

Want more? Read more about this endlessly fascinating topic and how the rankings and marketing games have bamboozled a generation here, here, here, here, or watch here and here.

What college application platform should you use?

Now that you have your list, you are ready to apply. Chances are that you may fill out several different types of applications in your process. Below is an overview of several types of college applications you might encounter.

The Common Application

This application is used by over 1000 colleges and universities in all 50 states and more than a dozen countries all over the world. It is an online application, and has some main components that are seen by all of the colleges you apply to.

These include:

Profile
Education
Testing (sometimes optional, depending on school)
Activities
Writing—often called the “college essay” or “personal essay” or “personal statement”
Courses and Grades (required by some colleges)
Supplements—these are additional questions and pieces of writing that some schools require

Each college is able to set its own individual application fee, which can range from free to around $80.

Coalition for College Application

More than 150 schools use this application, which was created by a group of schools that aimed to increase college access affordability. In fact, this group used to be called the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success. This system uses the Scoir (pronounced “score”) platform to provide an application experience that will be “personalized to your unique circumstances, allowing you to see certain benefits that Coalition members make available, like fee waivers.”

College’s Own Applications

Some colleges use their own proprietary application systems (only for use to apply to their school). For the most part, these colleges require information similar to what is listed above and occasionally omit or add sections. Some colleges accept applications through multiple application systems. If this is the case, they are required to consider applications submitted through any system equally. Some colleges only use their own application, including MIT, Georgetown, and many public universities such as the University of Washington.

UC Application, Cal State Application, and more

There are some applications that enable students to apply to schools in the same system or country. The UC Application (for which you’ll need to write 4 PIQs) allows students to apply to all nine University of California schools, while Cal State Apply provides access to all 23 state schools, each with their own individual application fee. This makes it simpler to apply to more schools, though do keep track of how many you apply to, as those applications add up! The United Kingdom’s UCAS system enables students to apply to schools in the UK.

International Applications

These can vary widely, though there are some systems in the UK (UCAS) and Canada’s Ontario province (OUAC) that allow applications to multiple schools in a region or country. To make it fun, some international universities that attract (or would like to attract!) US and other international students use the Common Application! Take a spin through the Explore section of the Common App’s site to see some examples.

For more information on applying to college outside of the US, check out CEG’s guide to applying abroad. If you are only considering attending college in the US, explore the idea of a study abroad experience during your college years.

Diving Deeper Into the Components of A College Application

Now that you know about the different applications, let’s learn a bit more about what colleges are looking for in each possible section of an application! Not all colleges use all of these, though it’s great to know about the full range of what you might be asked for.

Nine possible sections of a college application:

The information in your Profile and Family sections helps colleges to understand who you are (demographics), where you grew up, and also a bit about your parents’ story– what they do, if or where they went to college, whether you intend to apply for financial aid, and more. This all allows the colleges to gain insight into what types of opportunities you have had access to while in high school.
The Education Section of an application will ask questions about things like rank and GPA (if your high schools report that information). Colleges keep track of how many applicants apply from each high school, and they also use a document called a School Profile, which lists all of the courses your school offers, as well as other useful information such as where students are accepted to college and school graduation requirements and philosophy. If you haven’t already, check out your school’s college admissions profile as it is sure to be a document of interest!
Your high school also sends your Transcript, which is the record of all of the courses you took in high school, including the grades you received on them. It typically does not include comments from teachers or information about attendance and tardies (those are usually on your report cards!). Things like which classes are honors classes and which are AP Classes or IB classes are also on your transcript.
When it comes to Testing, we know that many colleges have become test optional or test blind. Do your research to find out each college’s policy. You can learn more by watching this video from Akil on how to approach testing in the new era. Many applications ask students to self-report their scores, and this must be followed up with you requesting to have your scores sent from the testing agency to each school you apply to.
Many college applications often ask students for an Activities List, which can sometimes be an element of the application that students don’t put nearly as much effort into as they should. Use this resource on how to write activities lists that will wow admission committees and look good on college applications.
When it comes to Writing College Essays, here are 35 essay tips that will help you write compelling and authentic personal statements (aka personal essays), as well as supplemental essays that will give colleges what they are looking for in terms of understanding you as an applicant and as a human being!
Some applications require students to self-report Courses and Grades (UC schools, for example), which means that you will need to take the time to really understand your transcript so that you can enter all of your coursework and grades earned into applications. Some colleges use these self-reported grades instead of your official high school transcript in order to make admissions decisions, and so accuracy is key.
There are some other components of applications, such as Letters of Recommendation which must be sent by your high school via the college’s application systems. Not all colleges require letters of recommendation, though many selective colleges. Be sure to read the CEG guide on how to ask for letters of recommendation here.
On some applications, including the Common Application, there is a section for Additional Information, which you can read more about here. If you are applying to an arts or specialty program, you may also be asked to submit program-specific information, auditions, or art supplements.

Now That You Know All of The Above, When Should You Apply to College?

You will want to create a college application timeline (or you can just use ours) that takes into consideration early action and early decision application options as well as their varied impact on acceptance rates. This will also be helpful for planning all of the writing you will likely be doing. Remember that ultimate college list research tracker? It also has a handy section for planning your essays!

And Finally, What Are Colleges Looking for?

By now you are probably curious about how much each of these application components weigh in college applications. This post about how to increase college admission chances shares 15 tips for applying to college that will help you even more insight into many of the topics mentioned above (and more!). Tip one unpacks a report called the State of College Admissions (SOCA), which helps you understand how your college application is going to be evaluated based on what colleges are looking for in applicants.

With all of this information and a robust array of resources, we hope you feel more ready to make the most of the college admissions process and are excited about sending off those confident and “glowed up” college applications to transform your future into a bright and sunny one.