Dive Brief:
- Some highly selective higher education institutions are conspiring to create their own online application system to supplant the Common Application.
- According to a May 12 document, an exploratory committee representing the colleges sought proposals for a backup application system, for when another system would fail, as well as a new collaborative application system, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
- The new system could go live next year.
Dive Insight:
The Common Application, now used by more than 500 colleges and universities globally, raised concerns during last year’s admissions season with its technical glitches, combined with the absence of a backup system. Among the schools represented on the un-Common App exploratory committee were Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University. Members of the group are private colleges that spend heavily on financial aid and public schools with high graduation rates. The group got its start last year, when admissions officials from some of the colleges in the Consortium on Financing Higher Education discussed starting a “fall-back option” to the Common Application, according to the Chronicle.