Admissions officials at some of the nation’s most-selective colleges seek to create a new online application system, according to documents obtained by The Chronicle. Although the platform would rival the Common Application, its members apparently would include only private colleges with robust financial-aid budgets, and public institutions with high graduation rates.
Earlier this year, an “exploratory committee” comprising representatives of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities, among several other institutions, sent out a request for proposals describing their interest in “an application solution to ensure that students can apply when another application mode experiences difficulties or system failure,” according to a May 12 draft of the RFP. “There is also interest,” the document says, “in establishing a new collaborative option for individual higher-education institutions as they work in their own ways to enroll the very best and most diverse freshman classes they can.” If built, the system could go live as early as next year.
The plans mark the latest chapter in the unfolding saga of the Common App, which was plagued by various technical difficulties at the height of last year’s admissions cycle. Following months of glitches, admissions leaders at colleges that had used the Common App exclusively said they worried about placing all of their eggs in one basket.
About a year ago, some admissions officials at colleges within the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, known as Cofhe, first discussed the possibility of starting a shared application system of their own, according to two deans who participated in the discussions. “There is a large sense that the Common App dominates the world, and the thought is, Wouldn’t it be good to have a fall-back option?” one of the deans said. “Nobody’s talking about this as a replacement, but as an additional option.”
The group, according to both officials, has weighed questions about which institutions should participate in such a platform. Initially, the deans recalled, there was interest in inviting only private institutions that meet the full financial need of accepted students. Later, the group decided to seek support from a more-diverse array of institutions, including some public colleges.
An April 20 document sent to the exploratory committee by members of the “Communications/Messaging Workgroup” includes the following recommendation: “Reach out to non-Cofhe schools ASAP since including a broader mix of schools will be critical in supporting our messaging and avoid any appearance of elitism.”
Eventually, a group of colleges, calling themselves the “Coalition,” settled on a vision for a new application system. Potential users, according to the RFP, would include interested members of the consortium, the Association of American Universities, and the Annapolis Group, which represents more than 100 liberal-arts colleges.
Private colleges, the document says, would “meet the full demonstrated financial need of admitted (domestic) first-year students.” Public colleges would “have in-state tuitions that make attendance possible for large numbers of students.” And all participating institutions would have “strong” graduation rates and “low loan-default rates” for undergraduate students.
Some passages in the RFP seem to convey longstanding frustrations with the Common Application, which has long had an array of membership requirements. Some of those rules have governed what colleges can say on their own websites, and what they may require of applicants. (Recently, the Common Application relaxed its membership requirements.)
The alternative application system, the document says, “will allow institutional autonomy with respect to selection policy and processes, and will maximize local oversight of individual items on members’ customized components of the application.”
At a breakfast meeting this week during the College Board’s annual conference, in Las Vegas, several representatives of institutions in the consortium discussed the plan further. Two deans who attended the gathering said they were told that a committee had settled on three potential vendors to build the system.
Several deans who are pushing the idea could not be reached for comment on Thursday. James G. Nondorf, dean of college admissions and financial aid at the University of Chicago, whom several sources said had initiated the plan, did not immediately respond to an email from The Chronicle late Thursday.
A dean at one institution that plans to participate in the system said he likes the Common Application, which is used by more than 500 colleges worldwide. But he described it as “kind of a diluted brand.” A smaller consortium of high-profile public and private colleges, he said, might better serve colleges and students alike.
How, exactly, another application option might help students is unclear, however. Those behind the idea, the RFP says, seek to ensure that it will not make the application process harder for “under-resourced, unsophisticated students,” and that the new platform could make it easier for them to understand, apply for, and receive need-based financial aid.
But some college counselors who had heard about the plan were skeptical. “For kids who don’t have any counseling, I think this is more confusing,” said Anne Ferguson, senior associate director of college counseling at Phillips Academy, in Andover, Mass. “I just don’t see how this helps the low-income, first-gen kids, or how flooding the market with more apps is going to help the kid in rural Montana without good counseling.”
