Follow These Two Simple Steps

You’re working in the Common App, and either your list of colleges has become massive or you just are no longer interested in a specific school. So how do you delete colleges from your Common App list? It is actually quite simple. Just follow these two steps.

1) Once you log into your Common App account, click on the DASHBOARD tab. You will see the entire list of colleges that you have added listed.
2) Click on the “X” in the upper right corner of the college you wish to remove from your list.
3) You’re done! Simple as that!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you remove a college from your Common App list, you cannot get it back unless you add it all over again and re-enter all of the information that is required. When you delete a college everything associated with that college will be gone. So make sure you really want to delete a specific school from your list.

Related Question: How to Add More than 20 Colleges to the Common App?

The Common App only allows you to add a maximum of 20 colleges. So what happens if you want to apply to 22 colleges? Well, that is a loaded question. First, do you really need to apply to 20+ colleges? Ask yourself the question for every college on your list, if this is the only college I get into will I be happy to attend and can I afford to attend? If the answer is not really, or no, then don’t apply! There is no reason to. It doesn’t justify wasting your time to complete the questions and potentially the supplemental essays or the application fee that you will pay. In addition, there are other students who are very interested in that college and you are potentially taking a spot for that student. That being said, if you absolutely need and want to apply to over 20 schools via the Common App, you are going to have to remove the number of schools over 20 to which you want to apply from your Common App. Why would you do that if you want to apply to all of them? Because there is a workaround. Submit the applications to the first 20 colleges via the Common App. When your application is received by the college it will be recorded in the Common App. At that point you are now able to remove that college from your Common App, allowing you the space to add other colleges, again up to 20, using the instructions that we outlined above.

Looking for help with the college application process? We help students and families through the entire college planning journey – from search, applications and essays to interview prep, financial aid consultation and final school selection.

Contact us at info@signaturecollegecounseling.com or by phone, 845.551.6946. We work with students through Zoom, over the phone and by email.