If you just wrapped up your Junior year, I hope you’re enjoying a little bit of R&R after your finals—because once late summer hits, it’s time to buckle down. And I probably don’t have to tell you why: your peers, parents, and teachers have doubtless been abuzz for months—if not years!—about college applications. Since apps are due senior fall and winter, I always see a deluge of new clients seeking my college app and test prep services in the summer. (Even if you’ll only be a high school sophomore or junior, this post is still for you: it’s good to start thinking early about college applications, at least in a big-picture way!) You’ll almost certainly have heard of something called the Common App (or “Common Application”) by now…but what’s this other one that you keep seeing? Something about a “Coalition”?
ARTICLE CONTENTS
1. Coalition App and Common App overview
i. Scoir and the Coalition App
2. Do Colleges Prefer the Common App or the Coalition App?
3. Differences between the Common App and the Coalition App
A. How many colleges accept each app?
B. Essay word limits and prompts
D. Accessing supplemental essay prompts
E. Grades and Coursework sections
F. "My Drive” on the Coalition App
G. Teachers and counselors’ familiarity with the Coalition vs. Common App
4. Conclusion
Coalition App and Common App Overview
Simply speaking, the Common App and the Coalition App are two different college application platforms that allow students to fill in their basic information once…and then use that info to apply to many colleges simultaneously.
By streamlining the process of applying to colleges, both of these websites save time, effort, and sanity for students and college admissions offices alike! There’s a democratic aspect to it, too: by reducing the work it takes to apply to college, these two platforms enable more students to apply to more schools…and to up their chances of getting into an institution that will open doors for their future.
Both the Common App and the Coalition App are free to use, though you may have to pay application fees to some of the individual colleges to which you’re applying.
What Is the Common App?
The Common App has been around since 1975. It has over 1,000 member institutions (1,033 as of this writing), meaning that many (if not most) students could apply to all of the colleges on their list by simply filling out this single application.
To be exact, these are the Common App sections you only have to fill out one time:
Profile
Family
Education
Testing
Activities
Writing (your central 650-word essay)
Depending on the specific colleges on your list, you might have to fill out additional questions and/or essays for those schools in particular.
For your convenience, I’ve written an entire article breaking down what’s on the Common App in detail. And here are the latest updates to the Common App for the 2022-2023 application season.
Coalition App Basics
A more recent option is the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, or simply “The Coalition App.” Founded in 2015, this application platform lets students apply to 136 participating colleges (as of this writing) by filling in the majority of the required information (like their general information and essay) once. In some cases you’ll also need to answer supplemental questions or essay prompts for certain schools. (Note: you’ll see on Coalition’s website that more than 136 colleges—171 as of today—participate in other Coalition initiatives to increase college access, but currently 136 schools specifically participate in the application option.)
The whole mission of Coalition for College is to make college more accessible and affordable to students from less privileged backgrounds. Thus, the Coalition App only partners with colleges that take proactive steps to provide sufficient financial aid to students in need—so that these students can graduate on time and without enormous student debt. If a college uses the Coalition App, that means they’ve been deemed more accessible and affordable than most.
The other belief behind the Coalition App is that the college application process shouldn’t be an uber-stressful rush-hour situation in which panicked students race to complete all of their applications during a single term (Senior fall). Thus, the Coalition App allows students to start as early as freshman year on certain application tasks: gathering their information, collaborating with teachers, parents, and counselors, and beginning to think about their essays.
Scoir and the Coalition App
Beginning this year, Coalition for College is joining forces with an online platform called “Scoir” (pronounced like “score”). This collaboration is meant to further streamline the college admissions process for students by allowing them to do research on specific schools AND apply via Coalition in one place. From here on out, you must create a Scoir account if you want to use the Coalition App to apply to college.
All application questions—including the essay prompts—remain the same. They have simply been taken from the original Coalition website, whole cloth, and moved to Scoir.
The number of schools using Scoir/the Coalition App is still somewhat in flux right now, as admissions offices are finalizing their application processes during the summer. So you may well be able to apply to more than 136 institutions via Coalition once Fall rolls around.
Do Colleges Prefer the Common App or the Coalition App?
Neither! If a college has partnered with both the Common App AND the Coalition App, then they do not favor one over the other. They will gladly accept whichever one you send them. Thus, YOUR job is to figure out the application that’s easier for YOU to complete and that best shows off your strengths.
However, please note that some colleges will accept applications from BOTH, only ONE, or even NEITHER interface. (Yep, many colleges—especially state ones—will have their OWN application unique to them and will NOT accept the Common App or the Coalition App! Some major schools in that category include the University of California system, the California State University system, Georgetown, and MIT.)
Differences between the Common App and the Coalition App
This is the question you really opened up this blog post for! Both applications sound awesome in theory—so the important thing is to drill down into the details so you can determine which one is better for you.
1. How many colleges accept the Coalition vs. Common App?
The Common App is currently accepted by 1,030+ member colleges and universities. Here’s the full list of schools that take it.
On the other hand, the Coalition App is only used by slightly over 130 colleges. Here’s the full list of colleges that accept the Coalition App.
By my count, currently no colleges exclusively accept the Coalition App for the upcoming fall ‘23 admissions cycle.
Conversely, there are HUNDREDS of colleges that use only the Common App and NOT the Coalition App.
There are also many colleges that accept both, including several Ivy League and other highly selective colleges.
Finally, to reiterate what I stated above, there are still several schools that accept NEITHER and have their own applications entirely. These include MIT, Georgetown, the University of California system, and the California State University system.
2. Essay word limits and prompts for Common App and Coalition App
The Common App offers seven essay prompts to choose from, and a strict 650-word limit. By “strict” I mean: the text box literally will not allow you to continue typing past the 650th word!
On the other hand, the Coalition App offers five essay prompt options and NO STRICT WORD LIMIT. The org that runs the Coalition App recommends an essay between 500-650 words, but you can submit more words than that on the platform. You DO have to look at the particular colleges’ applications though—certain colleges might impose a strict word limit, in which case, it would be unwise not to conform to it!
3. Common App activities section differs from the Coalition App’s
On the Common App, you get to list and rank up to ten different activities. For each of these, you get fifty characters to describe the title, position and organization of the activity itself and 150 characters to describe what you actually DID and accomplished with that activity.
On the Coalition App, you get to include only up to eight activities (instead of ten) and identify your top two activities (instead of ranking all of them). However, you have MUCH more space to write about your activities! You have sixty-four characters for the activity itself (as opposed to fifty), and up to 255 characters to describe it (as opposed to 150).
4. Accessing the supplemental essay prompts on the Common App vs. Coalition App
On the Common App, you can view each of a given college’s supplemental essay prompts at any time—even if you haven’t yet completed the “common” (i.e. universal) parts of the Common App yet. This is useful, because you can get an idea of just how many essays you’ll need to eventually write, and plan your time accordingly.
On the other hand, with the Coalition App, you must first finish the main application before you’re allowed to see each school’s supplemental essay prompts. For that reason, you might be surprised to learn just how much work you have left to complete after you submit the main app!
5. Grades and Coursework sections on college applications
On the Common App, you only need to manually fill out your most recent term’s course load and grades. Your transcript gets to fill in the rest of the story.
On the Coalition App, however, you’ll need to fill in ALL of the classes you’ve taken during high school, and the grades you earned in them. Luckily, the Coalition App has a nifty feature that can help you with this…
6. My Drive (previously "The Locker")
The Coalition for College Access has a special feature that the Common App does not. According to the Coalition’s website, “My Drive” (formerly known as the “Locker”) is “a comprehensive document storage solution for students with support for common file types and external links. ”
Thus, you can start storing your grades online and keep all of your documents in one place for use later! In fact, Coalition for College encourages students to start storing important documents and thinking about their applications as early as 9th grade.
Any counselor or parent/guardian linked to your Scoir account will also be able to view the items you add to My Drive. (There is no longer a separate “Collaborative Space” page for this feature.)
7. Teachers and counselors are more familiar with the Common App
Though the Common App doesn’t offer the specific My Drive feature mentioned in #6 above, it does have a 40+ year track record that counselors, teachers and application professionals are familiar with. And because it boasts updated integrations with Naviance, the Common App tends to be easier for your teachers and school counselor to use. This is super important when you’re asking for recommendation letters, transcripts and evaluations!
So, between the Common App and the Coalition App, which should YOU choose?
At the end of the day, this decision truly does depend on the particular schools on your college list! Though there are differences between the two application platforms, the biggest one is which application will reduce the amount of work YOU have to do, so you’re not filling out more applications than necessary to apply to your schools.
For almost all of the students I end up working with privately on college essays, the Common App tends to be the one we go with…merely because all of their target schools accept it, while NOT all of their target schools accept the Coalition App.
However, it’s possible that you’re the exception. If ALL the schools on your list are member colleges of the Coalition App, and you happen to like its features better, then that should be the application for you!
But in almost all other circumstances, you’ll probably need to use the Common App…plus any additional college-specific applications for schools that have their OWN applications and don't accept one of these streamlined platforms.
Have you Chosen your application, but need help writing those college essays?
Luckily, I excel in helping students get their authentic voice onto the page so they shine in their college application essays. If you want to know more about working with me one-on-one, contact me here. If you’d prefer to fly solo on this front, no worries—I’ve designed a one-stop guide to writing your main application essay. Click that link if you need to break through writer’s block, avoid clichés, and write the personal statement that gets you into your dream school AND reflects who you really are!
