Which College Applications Do I Need?

Do this in July, before you fill in anything. It takes an hour and it prevents the worst outcome in this process.

Your college list determines your platform list. Working that out after you've started filling in applications is how students discover in November that their first-choice school needs something they haven't opened an account for.

The table

For every school on your list, record:

| Column | Why it's there | |---|---| | School | | | Platform | Determines which account you need | | Account created | Each one is separate | | Application opens | They differ | | Deadline, and which round | The number that governs everything | | Personal essay required | And which platform's version | | Supplements: how many, word counts | This is your real workload | | Test policy | Verified from the school's own site, in August | | Merit aid: separate deadline or requirements | Frequently missed | | Aid forms required | FAFSA only, or CSS Profile as well | | Portal checked after submission | The step people skip |

Then sort by deadline

That's your actual calendar, and it's usually more compressed than students expect.

Add up the supplement word counts. That total is the real size of the work in front of you. Seeing it is often what convinces students to cut two schools — which is the right call. Eight to twelve applications done well beats twenty done carelessly, because past a point the supplements degrade and every application gets worse.

Three checks worth doing explicitly

1. Does any school on my list use a platform I haven't opened an account for?
2. Does any school have a deadline earlier than November 1?
3. Does any school require an aid form with a deadline earlier than the application?

If the answer to any of those is yes and you didn't know it, that's exactly what this exercise exists to catch.

Test policy belongs in this table too

Testing requirements have moved repeatedly since 2020. Many colleges went test-optional, a meaningful number have reinstated requirements, and several changed policy with less than a full cycle of notice. Any list of which schools require tests is out of date the moment it's printed.

Check the current policy for every school on your list, on that school's own admissions page, in August. Note separately whether merit scholarships have their own testing requirement — a school can be test-optional for admission and test-required for merit aid, and that one catches a lot of students.

Where to go next

Once the table exists, the month-by-month timeline tells you what to do in each month, and the platform comparison explains how each system differs.