College Application Information

This page contains important information about the college application process. If you are beginning your college applications our advice is to visit the admissions page of the schools you plan to apply. Many schools have their own application that you access through the school admissions page. Other schools use The Common Application or The Coalition Application for their admissions process. We have posted info on both applications in the links below.

The Common Application

The Common Application is a not-for-profit, member organization committed to the pursuit of access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process.

Forty years ago, fifteen forward-thinking institutions of higher education got together to brainstorm something great. Instead of a student needing to complete a separate college application for each of their fifteen institutions, they envisioned a future where a student could complete one application and send copies to any of the other fourteen schools. This became known as The Common Application Experiment, and it forever changed the course of college admissions.

Today, what was once a small but innovative group of fifteen institutions has transformed to a member organization comprised of nearly seven hundred wonderfully diverse colleges and universities from across the world. Each year, nearly 1 million students use the Common Application to submit over 4 million applications.

Common Application member institutions include: University of Michigan, Albion, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Hope, Yale, Harvard, Princeton and many more.

The Coalition Application

An unprecedented coalition of diverse public and private colleges and universities has come together to improve the college admission application process for all students. The Coalition has developed a free platform of online tools to streamline the experience of applying to college. The initial iteration of the platform—including applications for admission to Coalition schools—is now available for students in high school.

Coalition Application member institutions include: Michigan State University, University of Michigan, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Yale, Brown, UPenn, and many more.