Is the Common App or Coalition App a Better Option?

Last Updated on May 10, 2024 by Jill Schwitzgebel

Both the Common Application and the Coalition Application are online college application platforms. The Coalition App is a relative newcomer, opening up for applications in Fall of 2016. In contrast, the Common App has been around since 1975 and has gone through numerous revisions since then.

Let’s first talk about the similarities and differences in the two applications to help your student decide whether the common app or the coalition app is a better option for them to use as they are applying.

Member Colleges

The Coalition Application has around 140 colleges using its platform. That sounds like a lot, until you realize that the Common Application has almost 1,000 member colleges subscribing to its platform. There are currently about 90 schools that will accept either the Common App or the Coalition app. And many schools will give you the option between the college’s own application or one of these platforms.

There are also a relatively small number of schools that do not accept either of them. Those schools, mostly public universities, have their own preferred application or they may use the Universal Application, which has a much smaller group of members.

The Essay Questions

The main essay options tend to be very similar between the two applications. Essentially, the questions are meant to help students reveal their personalities to the admissions officers reading them. The Common App does have more essay prompts available to choose from. But both apps allow colleges to add on supplementary essays tailored to their school.

The Common App tends to be more strict in their guidelines for that main essay, with a strict word count of 500 words as a limit. Permitted formatting styles are limited to bold, italics and underlining. The essay is either typed into or cut and pasted into a text box on the website.

The Coalition app allows for a little more creativity. Students may choose their fonts, their colors and even add photos. Each school that uses this platform may customize their maximum preferred word count. Students may upload their essay as either a PDF or a word document to allow students to customize.

The Extracurriculars List

There are some significant differences here. The Common App allows students to list up to ten extracurricular activities, but gives them only 150 characters total to describe each one.

The Coalition App only allows students to list up to eight activities. BUT, students can write two sentences, of up to 255 characters each. It also allows for a longer activity label (title of the activity) than the the Common App does (64 characters, rather than only 50). The Coalition App does not ask students for the number of hours they participated in each activity, as the Common App does.

Other Considerations

Some schools now allow students to do multimedia uploads through the Coalition Application. Students can upload video, audio, and images to submit to a school, if they feel that it will enhance their application. Further, students can begin storing these files in their virtual locker as early as their freshman year in high school.

Both platforms now allow students to invite mentors, parents, or counselors to be added to their account. This can be a handy way to allow collaboration and feedback as students fill out the application.

Overall, students seem to find that the Common App is easier to navigate than the Coalition App is at this point. I anticipate that the Coalition App will become more user-friendly with each passing year though.

Recommendations

Students are going to have to answer essentially the same questions on both applications. There is a bit more room for creativity on the Coalition App for the student who feels that there may be better ways to show off their own personality than just through their essays and other answers. However, students should consider their audience before adding too many creative touches to their application. Not all admissions officers at all colleges will appreciate it and some may prefer very basic essays, as in the Common App.

My preference at this time is for the Common App, due to its intuitive set-up and the fact that admissions officers everywhere are generally quite familiar with every part of it. But, the most important thing to realize is that if a college offers both options, then they have no preference for the Common App versus the Coalition App. Neither of them will put a student at any disadvantage.

The bottom line is that students should complete whichever application will mean the least work for them in the end.

• If the colleges your student is applying to all take the Common App, then that’s the application they should choose.
• If all of the schools where your child is applying accept the Coalition App, but don’t all accept the Common App, then that’s the application to choose.

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