The November 1st is the deadline to submit Early Action or Early Decision applications for many schools and that date is looming for high school seniors. There is so much that goes into preparing an application for submission. Students have to take great care with the activities and honors sections of the Common App, ensure that they have answered all of the college-specific questions, crafted a meaningful personal statement, requested letters of recommendation, completed transcript documents from their high school and determine if they are testing and/or sending their scores to the colleges on their list. In addition to this, applicants may want to write an additional information piece or need to fill out a proprietary application as well as write supplemental essays.

This is a stunning amount of work but once this is finished, there is an entirely new set of tasks an applicant must complete to physically submit an application. This requires another set of detailed steps that need their focus and attention. Here is a step-by-step list of how to tackle this process:

1. Review the PDF of the application in the Common App, sign the FERPA waiver, load your credit card information and hit submit.
2. Determine if any of the schools on your list require the Self-Reported Academic Record otherwise known as the SSAR/SRAR. This is a platform where students have to load all of their transcript information and then submit this information virtually to the college. You can look here to see the list of schools that require this step.
3. Scores-If you are submitting SAT or ACT scores, these are submitted from the ACT or the College Board. The student must log into their respective accounts and send the scores to the colleges on their list.
4. Transcripts-Each high school has a protocol for sending transcripts and letters of recommendation. Make sure that your students knows the steps that they needs to take to ensure that their documents are sent in a timely manner.
5. Establish and monitor portals-Once an application is received, the college will email the student a link to a portal where they can monitor their file to confirm that their application is complete.
6. Go out to dinner and celebrate!

There is a reason that College Applications are the Stuff of Greatness!