Last Updated on July 23, 2026
Short answer: The Common App has seven core sections — Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities and Experiences, Writing, and Courses & Grades — plus college-specific supplements. The 2026–2027 application opens August 1, 2026, and lets you apply to up to 20 colleges from one account.
The Common App is one form, but it is really a dozen small decisions stacked on top of each other. Where you list your part-time job. Which essay prompt you answer. Whether you report a test score at all. Each section rewards a different kind of thinking, and the 2026–2027 application relaunched on August 1, 2026 with a refreshed look and a handful of meaningful changes.[1] This guide walks you through every part of the application, explains what each section is asking for, and points you to the deeper InGenius Prep resources for the sections that take real work.
Start Here: Profile, Family, and Education
The first sections are the ones most students rush. Resist that. They set the factual spine of your application, and errors here are the ones admissions officers notice fastest.
Profile and Family
The Profile section collects your name, address, demographics, citizenship, and fee-waiver eligibility.[2] For 2026–2027, the citizenship question relabeled “U.S. resident status” as “U.S. resident with other status,” and colleges now show on their Common App information page whether they accept Common App fee waivers. Applicants 23 and older who meet FAFSA independence criteria no longer have to answer the parent and sibling questions.
The Family section asks about your parents or guardians and their education. This is where first-generation status is captured, which many schools weigh in context. Answer it honestly and completely; there is no strategy here beyond accuracy.
Education and Courses & Grades
The Education section holds your school information, graduation date, class rank if your school reports one, and your academic honors. You can list up to five academic honors, roughly 100 characters each, tagged by grade level and recognition level (school, state, national, or international). Choosing which five earn a spot is its own small art — our guide to the Common App honors section breaks down how to rank and phrase them.
Some colleges also require Courses & Grades, where you self-report every course and grade from grades 9 through 12. It is tedious but mechanical. Pull your transcript, enter it exactly as it appears, and double-check before you submit — a mismatch between what you self-report and what your counselor sends is a red flag you can easily avoid.
Testing in 2026–2027
The testing section is where the biggest strategic shift of recent years shows up. The blanket “most schools are test-optional” advice is out of date. Several selective universities have reinstated testing requirements — MIT reinstated its SAT/ACT requirement, and several Ivies have followed in recent cycles. Do not assume; check each school’s current 2026–2027 policy before you decide whether to submit.
A few mechanical updates for this cycle: Duolingo scores now reflect a single test date rather than your highest across attempts, the new TOEFL version uses a 1–6 scale (both versions are accepted), and the Common App added three new AP subjects — Business with Personal Finance, Cybersecurity, and Networking. One thing that has not changed: SAT Subject Tests were discontinued in 2021 and no longer exist, so ignore any older guide built around them.
Activities and Experiences: Renamed and Reworked
This is the most changed section for 2026–2027, and the one where students win or lose the most ground. The section is now called “Activities and Experiences.” You still get up to 10 slots, and the character limits are unchanged: 50 characters for the position/leadership title, 100 characters for the organization name, and 150 characters for the description of what you did.
Two changes matter. First, the position and leadership field is now optional, which quietly reframes the section — it is no longer only about titles, but about what you actually did and the impact you had. Second, there are new dedicated fields for post-graduation activities and plans, and several categories were relabeled (for example, “Work (paid)” is now “Employment or work (paid),” and “Junior ROTC” is now “ROTC and Military”).
Ten lines of 150 characters is less room than it sounds. Every word has to earn its place with a specific verb and a concrete result. For the full method on writing entries that land, read how to write your Common App activities, and for concrete models across different profiles, our Common App activities list examples shows strong entries side by side with weak ones.
The Writing Section: Personal Statement and Additional Information
Personal Statement
The personal statement is unchanged for 2026–2027: seven prompts, 250–650 words, one essay sent to every school on your list. The prompts still range from a meaningful background or identity, to a lesson from a setback, to a topic so engaging you lose track of time, to a topic entirely of your choice. Strong essays are specific, reflective, and unmistakably yours. Plan on more drafts than you expect — well-revised essays often go through many rounds before they read as effortless. Start with the 2026–2027 personal statement prompts and choose the one that gives you the most honest material, not the one that sounds most impressive.
Additional Information and Choosing a Major
The Additional Information section is a free-text box of up to 300 words for anything that does not fit elsewhere — an interruption in your schooling, an unusual grade, context for a gap. It is not a second essay and not a place to repeat your activities. The temporary COVID-19 “Community Disruptions” question from earlier cycles has been replaced by a new “Challenges and Circumstances” section (250 words), where a hardship that shaped your record now belongs. For a clear sense of when to use this box and when to leave it blank, see our guide to Additional Information on the Common App.
Elsewhere in the application, each college asks for your intended major. That choice can shape how your file is read, especially at schools that admit by program. If you are undecided or weighing options, read how to choose a major on the Common App before you lock anything in.
Transfer Applicants
The Common App for transfer students remains available for 2026–2027, with its own timeline and requirements. It asks for your college coursework, a college report and academic evaluations, and usually a transfer-specific essay about why you are moving. Participating-school counts and requirements shift, so confirm each target school’s current transfer requirements directly rather than relying on an old number. The core writing principles still apply: be specific about what you want that your current school cannot give you.
Your 2026–2027 Timeline and Where to Go Deeper
A workable rhythm for a rising senior applying in fall 2026:
- Summer through August 1: Draft your personal statement and build your Activities and Experiences entries. The application opens August 1, 2026.
- September–October: Finalize supplements, confirm each school’s testing policy, and prepare Early Decision and Early Action files.
- November: Most ED and EA deadlines land in early November.
- January: Most Regular Decision deadlines fall around January 1–15.
- February–April: ED II and RD results arrive, with most RD decisions out by early April.
- May 1: The standard enrollment deposit deadline for admitted students.
The single most valuable habit across all of it is avoiding the errors that quietly cost applicants — the ones your reader sees before your strengths do. Our roundup of the most common Common App mistakes to avoid is worth reading before you submit anything. And if you want one document that walks the entire application end to end, start with our complete Common App guide.
Filling out the Common App well is not about clever tricks. It is about treating each section as a distinct question and answering it with precision. The students who do that consistently are the ones whose applications read as considered rather than assembled. Across the Class of 2030, InGenius Prep students earned Ivy+ offers at 12.5 times the national rate, independently verified — the product of exactly this kind of section-by-section discipline.
Get Expert Support on Your College Applications
Need help crafting a polished Common Application that highlights your strengths and tells your story clearly? Schedule a free strategy call with an Enrollment Counselor to get personalized guidance on your activities list, essays, and application strategy.