BY LAURA REILLY
Features Editor
As the college acceptance flags begin to cover the perimeter of the cafeteria, many juniors are thinking about the whole college application process. Seniors say the most important step is the common app.
As stated on the official website, “The Common Application is a non-for-profit organization that serves students and member institutions by providing an admission application – online and in print – that students may submit to any of our 415 members.”
Guidance counselor Joseph Senerchia said. “There’s the student app which includes the personal info, where you provide your academics, extra-curricular activities, and parental information. Then there are teacher evaluation forms and letters of recommendation. There’s also the secondary school report.”
There is also an essay, he said.There are six essay topics to choose from, the last giving the students the option to pick their own topic.
Senior Tom Sweeney of Millstone chose the sixth option, which is the “topic of choice.”
“I wrote mine about a quote by Aristotle that means a lot to me, and how it affected my life,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney believes that the common application is useful and an organizational tool for students to handle the application process. He plans on attending Rutgers University, which did not accept the common application.
Senior Alex Winchell of Keyport chose to indicate a person who has had a significant influence on him and to describe that influence.
“I wrote about this time I met a girl on a school trip, and while we were talking I realized I liked her a lot, and that we would never see each other again,” Winchell said. “I wrote in some stuff about Japanese philosophy; because there was a concept I came across which really fit how I felt about the whole thing.”
Winchell, who has not decided where he is attending college, yet, said that he is in favor of the common application.
“I would have hated filling out a separate thing for every school,” he said.
Not every student used the common application process. “I only applied to four schools and three of them didn’t use the common app, so I didn’t use it,” senior Nate Rais of Marlboro said.
“It’s probably amazing if you’re applying to twelve different common app schools, because then it’ll save you hours and hours of time.” Rais plans to attend Drexel U. Seniors who want to start working on their Common Application should not register until after July 31, said Senerchia.