The Common App rolled over on August 1, as it does every year. Everything a senior does in it between now and November is easier if the first hour goes to setup. Here’s that hour.
The ten things
-
Create the account with an email the student checks and will keep. Not the school email, which some districts shut off at graduation. Not a parent’s. Colleges will write to this address for the next year.
-
Fill in the Profile, Family and Education sections completely. They’re tedious and they’re required for every college. Doing them now means every later session is about essays, not forms.
-
Add the colleges from the list. Each one appears with its own deadlines, requirements, and supplements. Seeing the whole picture in one place is clarifying — and occasionally alarming, which is useful in August.
-
Sign the FERPA waiver. Under Recommenders and FERPA. Waiving the right to read recommendations is standard; colleges weigh waived letters more, and most teachers won’t write unwaived ones.
-
Invite recommenders. Only after asking them in person or by email, and only after checking how your high school handles it. Many schools — including the larger Bucks County districts — route recommendations through Naviance or SCOIR rather than Common App directly. Your counselor’s August communication will say which.
-
Request the transcript. Same channel. Counselors are flooded in October; a request in August is a kindness that gets remembered.
-
Enter test scores, or decide not to. Self-reported scores go in the Testing section; official reports are sent from the College Board or ACT when a college requires them. Check each college’s policy for this cycle before deciding what to send.
-
Build the activities list. Ten slots, 150 characters each for the description. This is a post of its own, but the short version: lead with what the student did and what changed, not the title.
-
Paste in the personal statement draft. Even an unfinished one. Seeing it in the box, with the word count, makes it real.
-
Open every supplement and read the prompts. Don’t write yet. Just read them all, and note which colleges want a “Why us” essay, which want a short answer about a major, and which want nothing. That’s the September writing calendar.
What this buys
A student who does these ten things in August spends September and October on the only parts that need thinking: essays and supplements. A student who doesn’t spends the last week of October discovering that a recommender was never invited.
One hour. This week.
By Jeff Thompson, Phortex Campus · August 12, 2025 · ← All posts