Upcoming Common App Changes: What To Know

The Common App, the undergraduate college admission application whose platform is used by most colleges in the United States, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. With that milestone come changes big and small, to the application questions, the forms, and the process itself. 

In this blog, we’ll review a few of the changes that are most important for you as well as those things that are not changing by August 1, 2025.

Essay Prompts

In February, the Common App announced its essay prompts for the new 2025-2026 application season. Based on positive feedback, they have decided to keep its main prompts unchanged. They are:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design

However, students will see two major differences in the form of additional supplementary questions. 

Instead of the existing prompt on “community disruptions”, students will instead be asked about “challenges and circumstances”, which the Common App believes will “capture a broader range of impacts students may experience.” This question will be 250 words maximum for first-year students.

For the existing “Additional Information” question, students will find the word count reduced from 650 words to 300 maximum.

Form

Over the last year, the Common App has been striving to make itself easier, more understandable, and more inclusive.

As part of that work, there’s been a significant redesign of the form itself to make it more welcoming and supportive. 

These changes include new navigation features, with a left-hand navigation menu replacing the previous top tabs and status indicators to help students understand what they have completed and how much work they still need to do. 

The hope is that this will help students have an easier time completing their applications and reduce any confusion that might arise in the process.

New Functionality

Finally, the Common App has begun the process of integrating Scoir, a platform used to help students on their college journey. Scior is used by many high schools and college advisors to help students identify schools they might be interested in as well as submit transcripts and letters of recommendations.

This integration includes new tools that helps students understand where they’ve applied and when they’ve applied, reducing the number of duplicative recommendation requests, and an enhanced ability to send documents.

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These are a few of the major developments that students can expect from the Common App for the upcoming application season. If students have any questions or concerns (or just want help applying), they can reach out to a Class 101 college advisor today.