Become an Application Stalker

After you submit your application on the CommonApp, it should look like this.

You should receive a student ID from the schools to which you applied or an e-mail confirming your submission.  Be sure to follow up and make sure that all of the pieces of your application have been received. 

The most common things missing are:

• Letters of recommendation
• Transcripts
• SAT/ACT scores

Unfortunately, things get lost or sometimes there is a glitch in the system, so just make sure that you are on top of everything.  If there’s a problem with items 1 or 2, speak with your teachers or guidance counselor.  Make sure that they have sent them out before calling the school.  Once you have the information, call the school if you know they have been sent out on time. If your “official test scores” have not been received, you will need to call the College Board for SATs or Educational Testing for the ACTs to see why they have not been sent.  

Contacting the SATS:  Click here for contact info  

Contacting the ACTs: Click here for contact info 

If you don’t see your tests on the CommonApp Preview

This may occur for several schools but do not panic. If you elected to self-report your tests and have them considered in your application, they may NOT show up on your application when you submit. We spoke with someone at the University of Pennsylvania to confirm what happens. Here’s what they said:

We’re not exactly sure how it’s going to work. If you’ve entered test scores onto the common app and then elected to have them considered for Penn it will NOT show up on the PDF but when you look into your Penn portal you will see the test date but not the test scores.

You will not see multiple test dates, on the portal, just the most recent one though. If we receive your test scores from SAT/College Board, you should be able to see that we received official test scores but we are not sure if even then you will see the multiple test dates. We want to make it very clear however, that official test scores are not required for admissions this year.

Penn Admissions Officer

So this is the year of having faith, even in uncertainty.

If you applied test optional

This year if you are applying test optional because you were unable to take your tests or you were not happy with your scores, you may also see another form in your portal. Here is an example of what The University of Michigan asks students who are applying test optional.