The Common Application, a tertiary institution membership organisation, has launched a new integration platform which allows college counselling software providers to integrate their services with the existing online application system.
The Common Application system currently enables students to apply to over 800 institutions worldwide.
“We are enabling…providers that serve counsellors and students to lower the barriers in applying to college”
In addition to long-standing collaborations with Hobson and Parchment, the Common App will include four new providers, BridgeU, Cialfo, FolderWave and MaiaLearning, offering college counselling services international students as well as secondary institutions in the US.
The integration will allow third-party providers to offer “seamless” support for applicants by, for example, facilitating the exchange of data between the Common App and third-party college counselling systems. It will also provide status updates to college counsellors based on their students’ progress within the App.
“We are enabling a broader ecosystem of providers that serve counsellors and students to lower the barriers in applying to college by making it easier…to navigate this critical process from whichever system they choose,” Jenny Rickard, president and CEO of The Common Application, said in a statement.
Founded 40 years ago by 15 institutions as the Common Application Experiment, the Common App’s online platform today allows students to apply to different institutions across its 800 members by completing one ‘common’, and crucially, free application.
More than one million students globally each year use the platform, and for the past 10 years the Common App has collaborated with third-party software solutions to support university and career counselling services at secondary schools around the world, Daniel Obregon, senior director of marketing and communications told The PIE News.
“The launch of this new integration service makes that capability available to a larger number of providers servicing the international students applying to Common App member institutions located in the US and across 19 other countries,” he said.
Obregon explained that it will make it easier for applicants to start the application process, streamline the collection of teacher and counsellor recommendations, and automate the transmission of supporting documents and transcripts to the relevant institutions.
