The 5 Things Students Forget to Do Before Submitting Their Common App

There’s a moment in the college application process when students finally think, “I’m done.”

The Common App is filled out. The personal statement has been reviewed, edited, and proofread. The supplemental essays are finished. The deadline is approaching, and all that’s left is to hit “Submit.” Well, not quite. 

The problem nobody talks about is that submitting a Common App with an avoidable mistake doesn’t just feel bad. An incomplete application can affect whether a college has everything it needs to review your student’s application, whether the school needs to follow up, or whether a student misses an important financial-aid or scholarship deadline.

So why does this happen? By the time students reach the submission stage, they are mentally done. The hard creative work is behind them, and the finish line feels like it has already been crossed. The final checklist items feel low-stakes compared to writing an essay, but those final checklist items still matter, and most students don’t have a coach, counselor, or parent who knows exactly what to look for at this stage. As a result, gaps can go unnoticed until it’s too late to fix them.

Simply put, the Common App isn’t finished when the essays are written; it’s finished when everything has been reviewed, confirmed, and deliberately submitted.

Here are the five things students can overlook in the final stretch, and how to make sure your student doesn’t.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes Students Make When Submitting the Common App?

1. Every School-Specific Section Isn’t Actually Complete

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Common App is that completing the main application means the application is finished. It isn’t.

The Common App allows students to submit shared information to multiple colleges, but individual schools often have their own questions, essays, and requirements. For that reason, the Common App specifically recommends that students gather and track each college’s requirements because they are not all the same.

It’s easy for a student to complete the main application, feel finished, and forget to review their supplemental materials for each university. 

What to do: Go through the My Colleges section with your student. Confirm that every required question, supplemental essay, and school-specific component is filled in before your student clicks submit. 

2. The Activities Section Wasn’t Reviewed With Fresh Eyes

The activities section is one of the most underleveraged parts of the Common App.

Students often complete it early, move on to their essays, and never look at it again, but a lot can change between starting an application and submitting.

Maybe your student became team captain, finished a major project, took on a leadership role, increased their volunteer hours, or simply realized that an activity they thought represented their interest actually doesn’t. All those changes should be reflected before final submission. 

What to do: Read every activity entry as if you were an admissions officer seeing it for the first time. Is it up to date? Does it accurately describe what your student did? Does the order highlight the activities that matter most? Does the section tell a consistent story?

3. Recommenders Were Asked, but Their Letters Haven’t Been Submitted 

Your student sent a recommendation letter request, and their teacher said, “Absolutely. I’ll get started on it soon.” In your student’s mind, they’ve already checked that box, but a request is not a completed recommendation.

Teachers are often managing dozens of recommendation requests at the same time—particularly during the start of application season. Teachers are human (and have a full-time job), so letters can be delayed.

And while the exact requirements vary by college, students should know the status of every required recommendation and confirm whether it has been received by the college’s deadline. Common App provides specific resources for students and recommenders to help manage this part of the process.

What to do: Check the recommendation status for every school. If a recommendation is still pending, have your student send the teacher a polite reminder well before the deadline, not the night before.

4. The Fee Waiver or Payment Wasn’t Verified

Application fees are easy to overlook when a student is applying to a full college list.

Your student might assume a fee waiver was automatically applied, or assume a payment went through because they clicked the right button. After hours of work, neither is something to leave to chance.

Common App offers a fee waiver for eligible students, but students need to complete the appropriate steps in their application, and individual colleges may have their own fee-waiver policies as well.

What to do: Before submitting, confirm whether the school requires a fee, whether your student qualifies for a fee waiver, and whether they need to take any additional action. After submitting, look for the application confirmation and check the college’s applicant portal to make sure the application was received and marked complete.

5. Nobody Read the Essays Out Loud One Final Time

This is one of the best pieces of writing advice out there, but almost nobody does it. 

By the time students are ready to submit, they have read their personal statement and supplemental essays so many times that their brain will automatically fill in the correct word when they encounter a typo. Everyone does this, so reading the essay in their heads for the twentieth time probably isn’t going to reveal anything new. Reading it out loud can.

When a student reads aloud, they can catch missing words, strange phrasing, accidental autocorrect changes, and—the nightmare scenario—using the wrong college name.

A student copies a “Why This School?” essay, updates most of it, and accidentally leaves another university’s name somewhere. It makes sense that this happens, but that’s exactly the kind of avoidable mistake that a final review should catch.

What to do: Have your student read every essay out loud slowly one final time. Or read it aloud for them. As they’re reviewing, make sure to check every mention of a college’s name and make sure it matches the school receiving that application.

The Bonus Thing Nobody Mentions: Save Everything

Before hitting submit, save a complete copy of the application. Yes, every essay, every activity description, every short answer.

The Common App may not be the last time your student needs that information. Scholarship applications, honors college applications, interviews, housing forms, and other opportunities may ask students to revisit the same experiences or build on the same writing.

Students who don’t save their work often end up trying to recreate it from memory.

What to do: Copy the text from every important section into one organized document and save it somewhere accessible.

Final Thoughts

Despite what most people think, the students with the strongest college application materials are not the ones with the most creative personal statement. Typically, it’s the students who treat the Common App like a project with a completion checklist and are deliberate all the way to the end. 

The final review matters. Having a college admissions consultant review your student’s application before submitting is one of the smallest investments of time that can have a significant impact on the application process. 

At The Enrichery, our college admissions coaches work with students through every step of the application process, including reviewing all of your student’s materials before submitting.

If your student is applying this fall and wants a second set of experienced eyes to review their application, The Enrichery is here to help. Spots for fall college admissions support fill quickly, so contact us today to make sure your student’s application is ready to go.