What Information to Gather Before Starting the Common App

Start with your school record

Keep a copy of your high school transcript nearby. Common App's published preparation checklist also tells students to know their high school code, current courses, GPA scale, and how the school reports class rank. Ask your counselor when you aren't sure how a field should match the official record.

Write down every secondary school you attended and the dates. If you took courses through a college, online program, or summer school, keep that institution's name and course details nearby too. The goal is accuracy, not speed. Guessing now creates a second fact-check later.

• High school name, address, and CEEB code
• Transcript, current courses, GPA scale, and class-rank reporting
• Other schools or colleges where you completed coursework
• Counselor name, email, and school contact details

Build the full activities and honors inventory

Collect more detail than the final form can hold. For each activity, job, family responsibility, or community role, record the organization, position, grades involved, hours per week, weeks per year, and what you actually did. Keep dates, results, and a contact who could confirm the context when that is relevant.

Do the same for academic honors. Common App's current published checklist describes space for up to ten activities and five academic honors, but confirm the live fields when you apply. Don't trim the master inventory yet. A complete private record makes the short version easier to write and keeps an overlooked responsibility from disappearing.

Gather family and residency details

The application can ask about parents or legal guardians, their occupations and employers, education, and colleges or degrees. It can also ask for citizenship, visa, or state-residency information when relevant. Ask for those details before you reach the fields, especially dates and institution names that nobody keeps ready for casual conversation.

Keep this information private and use the application itself to decide what is required. Your essay workspace doesn't need copies of passports, financial records, or identity documents. Store sensitive material only where the application or another official process asks for it.

Record testing details without assuming a test policy

If you may report standardized tests, collect the test name, date, score, and any future test date. Then check each college's official policy for your application cycle. One school may require SAT or ACT scores, another may be test optional, and another may use a different route for an international curriculum.

What should you avoid? A single spreadsheet column that says 'testing done' for every school. Record the policy source, the date you reviewed it, what the college requires from you, and whether self-reported or official scores are needed at that stage.

Make a separate requirement card for every college

Common App tells students to use each college's information page and requirements because colleges set their own writing, testing, recommendation, and deadline rules. Your card should name the decision plan, official deadline, required school documents, recommendation count, testing policy, writing prompts and limits, and any portfolio, interview, or program requirement.

Add the official source URL and review date. Search snippets get stale, prompts change, and a requirement for one undergraduate school may not apply to another. A clean card lets you recheck the live source shortly before submission instead of rebuilding the research from memory.

• Decision plan and application deadline
• Transcript, school report, and recommendation requirements
• Testing and English-proficiency policy
• Personal essay, supplements, and exact limits
• Portfolio, audition, interview, scholarship, or program requirements
• Official source URL and the date you checked it

Ask supporters early and track the request

Recommendation requirements differ by college. Common App explains that counselors, teachers, parents for an Early Decision form, and other recommenders can have different roles. Check which supporters each school accepts before asking someone to submit anything.

For every request, track the person's name, email, role, colleges or forms involved, the date you asked, and the school deadline. Give them time. You can't write a stronger recommendation by sending three increasingly worried messages the night before it's due!

Separate reusable profile work from this year's college questions

Common App says students can start exploring and work on parts of My Common Application, including activities and the personal essay, before they apply. It also warns students to start college-specific questions, writing supplements, and portfolios only for the application year in which they plan to submit because that material may not roll over.

Keep a reusable master record for activities, honors, background facts, and early story notes. Put each school's current prompts and requirements in a cycle-labeled area. That's the boundary that keeps useful preparation from quietly turning into last year's application.

Do one completeness check before drafting

You are ready to draft when every school has a visible deadline, requirement source, prompt list, and open question. The open question matters. If a testing page hasn't been updated or a program prompt is missing, write 'not confirmed' and return to it rather than filling the gap with an assumption.

Now choose what each essay should add beyond the transcript and activities list. You don't have to settle every topic today. You just need enough application context to stop one story from doing the same job five times.