How the Coalition application can affect your high school experience

The Coalition application transformed the world of scrambling every ounce of information over the course of high school into one big cloud for colleges to take a look into. Coalition Colleges want to increase college access for all students to obtain a virtual locker where students can enter their work and accomplishments over a four year period of time, starting freshman year.

“Everything on the website is organized into separate categories and it’s super easy to navigate,” senior Kayla Edouard said. “The only school I’m applying to on the coalition application is for University of Florida. The rest of my schools are on common application instead.”

The coalition application launched in January 2016, allowing students to upload documents immediately to better prepare them for the years following high school. The virtual locker plans to include: extracurricular activities, interests, writing samples, college essays and personal video submissions, among other things. Though the Common Application will remain available, those using the Coalition’s virtual locker will not need to submit the common application.

“I don’t even know what coalition is. I’ve heard teachers talking about it but I just don’t understand why we have to start applying to college now,” junior Jose Isaza said. “I think 9-11 grades should be spent preparing and focusing on making it possible to get into college, while senior year is meant to apply what was done the three years before that.”

Ultimately, the Coalition colleges believe in early preparation and making the application more holistic to gain greater insight about applicants over a period of time. Over 93 coalition colleges do not plan to use the application during the 2016 admission cycle and will not announce which colleges are opting out of the application. This can cause difficult for students to organize which application to use.

Although the coalition is still be in progress, the application company has been reaching out to high school counselors explaining the general idea. The Coalition hopes to develop new tools and encourage all students—especially low income students—to apply to college.

“I like things better when they’re simple and have a one way path to take. The common application, in my opinion, is easier to complete and has one set path,” senior Nicholas Lipcon said. “The coalition also isn’t set up with most schools and that means more work with two different websites.”