College Admission Essays: Applying Online

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Applying Online

Welcome to the third millennium! Many major undergraduate institutions, as well as most graduate programs and medical, law, and business schools, have made provisions for electronic applications. If you apply online, you save paper, a trip to the post office, and all the headaches addressed by the preceding pages of this chapter, such as locating a typewriter and dealing with margins.

To find out whether online application is possible, check the Web site of the college or university you favor. If you don’t know the URL — the Web address — try the name or initials of the institution, followed by “edu,” the educational suffix (www.harvard.edu or www.ucla.edu, for example). Or, conduct a search with one of the Internet’s search engines, such as Google (www.google.com) or Altavista (www.altavista.com). Still can’t find the site? Call the school’s admissions office.

About 230 colleges and universities, including members of the exclusive “Ivy League,” accept a “common application” for undergraduate admission. The application, found at www.commonapp.org, may be downloaded and printed or submitted electronically. Participating schools pledge to consider the common app (its affectionate nickname) as if it were their own, exclusive application. However, some institutions also require a supplemental, just-for-them addendum to the common app. Read the directions on the school’s Web site or call the admissions office for guidance.

More than 100 medical schools have devised their own “common app,” which is administered by the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS). The common-application essays — “practice vision” and “personal comments” — are in Part III. You may submit an AMCAS application online at www.aamc.org. AMCAS charges a fee for its service.

Lawyers have also gotten into the common application game — and, not surprisingly, they also charge for online applications. Go to the Web site of the Law School Admission Council (www.lsac.org) for the legal “common app.” If you wish to apply online, fill in the form and designate all the schools you’d like to receive your application. Factual information — name, address, and so forth — will automatically be entered into the proper spot on each school’s application blank. However, you’ll have to upload your law school admission essays separately to each of your chosen schools. (You can do so at the Law School Admission Council Web site; you just need a few clicks for each school.)

Most business schools allow electronic applications. Go to the Web site of each school or check out the Princeton Review Web site (www.princetonreview.com). This site, formerly known as Embark, allows you to fill in factual information on one form and then it uploads your information to every school you’ve selected, automatically slotting the data into the appropriate place. You’ll need to send the longer stuff, including your essays and the four- or five-sentence “short answers,” to each school separately. (You can take care of these tasks at the Princeton Review site.) These applications are also accepted for many other types of graduate school applications as well as some law schools, medical schools, and undergraduate programs. You don’t pay Princeton Review for this application service, though you still have to shell out an application fee for each school you’ve selected, and some add a surcharge for Princeton Review applications.

When you fill in the essay blanks online, use the “copy and paste” commands of your word-processing program to upload the essay into the proper spot. In Microsoft Word, for example, click on the “Edit” button at the top of the screen. Then choose “select all” and “copy.” The material is now saved and ready for the “paste” command. (Some online applications include an “upload” button that replaces the “paste” command.)