Which Schools Use the Common App? The Rank-Ordered List (2024)

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The complete list of schools that use the Common App and schools that don’t, organized by ranking

A student working on the Common App

READ ON FOR A LIST OF COMMON APP SCHOOLS

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Introduction

As your child begins the college search, she’ll be asked to write essays, submit test scores (e.g., ACT or SAT), supply demographic information, and more. Colleges differ from one another, and their application requirements vary. However, many colleges—including the nation’s most prestigious—require students to use the Common Application. 

The Common Application, or “Common App,” is currently accepted by over 900 colleges and universities, according to the application’s official website. The goal of the Common App, which was founded over 40 years ago by fifteen institutions, is to make the college application process more streamlined, transparent, and equitable for prospective students. During the 2023–2024 application cycle up to March 1, 2024, 7.5 million applications were submitted by 1.31 million unique applicants using the Common App; an increase of 28% since 2019–2020.

Essentially, this means that your child doesn’t have to fill out ten wildly different college applications; instead, they can send the same application to any school that accepts it. They can write a main essay—the Common App Essay—complete a single Common App Activities section, and enter their demographic information.

There’s a caveat, though: many schools that accept the Common App still require supplemental application materials. Yale, Haverford College, and some SUNY schools, for example, require two supplemental college essays on top of the Common App.

In addition, while many schools accept the Common Application, some don’t. Prestigious universities like MIT and those in the University of California (UC) system have their own applications.

Some schools have started accepting the Coalition Application instead of the Common App. The Coalition Application was founded in 2015 by a group of 140 schools (now including 170) “with the goal to improve the college application process for all students, particularly those from historically under-represented groups.” Many highly regarded public institutions like Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland use the Coalition Application. Other schools, like Princeton, accept the Coalition Application in addition to the Common App.

To help you and your child plan the application season, we’ve developed comprehensive lists of schools that accept the Common App and those that don’t. They’re ordered according to the 2023 U.S. News & World Report college rankings, and cross-checked with Common App’s member search tool.

As we compiled the list below, we came away with a few key observations:

  • Colleges affiliated with the U.S. military tend not to accept the Common Application.

  • Religiously affiliated colleges and universities tend not to accept the Common Application.

  • Some public universities don’t accept the Common Application—and are likely to use the Coalition Application instead.

  • Some colleges with a more STEM or technical focus—like MIT—choose not to accept the Common Application. 

  • Highly selective universities—Ivy League schools like Harvard and Cornell, for example—tend to accept the Common Application and other application types, like the Coalition application.

  • The majority of national universities and liberal arts colleges that are ranked in the top 100 by U.S. News (i.e., the schools listed below) accept the Common Application.

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List of schools that use the Common App (by ranking)

National universities

Liberal arts colleges

  • Williams College (1)

  • Amherst College (2)

  • Pomona College (4) (tie)

  • Swarthmore College (4) (tie)

  • Wellesley College (4) (tie)

  • Bowdoin College (9) (tie)

  • Carleton College (9) (tie)

  • Claremont McKenna College (11) (tie)

  • Middlebury College (11) (tie)

  • Grinnell College (11) (tie)

  • Barnard College (11) (tie)

  • Wesleyan University (11) (tie)

  • Smith College (16) (tie)

  • Vassar College (16) (tie)

  • Davidson College (16) (tie)

  • Hamilton College (16) (tie)

  • Harvey Mudd College (16) (tie)

  • Washington and Lee University (21) (tie)

  • Colgate University (21) (tie)

  • Haverford College (21) (tie)

  • Bates College (24)

  • University of Richmond (25) (tie)

  • Colby College (25) (tie)

  • Macalester College (27) (tie)

  • College of the Holy Cross (27) (tie)

  • Bryn Mawr College (30) (tie)

  • Bucknell University (30) (tie)

  • Lafayette College (30) (tie)

  • Colorado College (33)

  • Mount Holyoke College (34)

  • Scripps College (35) (tie)

  • Occidental College (35) (tie)

  • Franklin and Marshall College (35) (tie)

  • Skidmore College (38)

  • Kenyon College (39) (tie)

  • Pitzer College (39) (tie)

  • Denison University (39) (tie)

  • Trinity College (39) (tie)

  • Hillsdale College (39) (tie)

  • Spelman College (39) (tie)

  • Union College (45)

  • Whitman College (46) (tie)

  • Dickinson College (46) (tie)

  • DePauw University (46) (tie)

  • Furman University (46) (tie)

  • Connecticut College (46) (tie)

  • Principia College (51) (tie)

  • The University of the South (Sewanee) (51) (tie)

  • Centre College (51) (tie)

  • St. Olaf College (51) (tie)

  • Rhodes College (56) (tie)

  • Oberlin College (51) (tie)

  • Soka University of America (56) (tie)

  • Wheaton College (IL) (56) (tie)

  • Trinity University (59) (tie)

  • Wabash College (59) (tie)

  • St. Lawrence University (59) (tie)

  • Wofford College (59) (tie)

  • Gettysburg College (63) (tie)

  • Agnes Scott College (63) (tie)

  • Reed College (67) (tie)

  • Thomas Aquinas College (67) (tie)

  • Gustavus Adolphus College (67) (tie)

  • Hobart and William Smith Colleges (70) (tie)

  • Muhlenberg College (70) (tie)

  • Bard College (72)

  • Lake Forest College (73) (tie)

  • College of St. Benedict (73) (tie)

  • St. John's College (MD) (75) (tie)

  • Lawrence University (75) (tie)

  • Knox College (75) (tie)

  • Allegheny College (75) (tie)

  • College of Wooster (75) (tie)

  • Willamette University (75) (tie)

  • Wheaton College (MA) (75) (tie)

  • Juniata College (82) (tie)

  • St. Mary's College of Maryland (82) (tie)

  • St Johns University (MN) (82) (tie)

  • Beloit College (86) (tie)

  • Stonehill College (86) (tie)

  • Ursinus College (86) (tie)

  • Southwestern University (89) (tie)

  • University of Puget Sound (89) (tie)

  • Washington and Jefferson College (89) (tie)

  • St. John's College (NM) (93) (tie)

  • Washington College (93) (tie)

  • Lewis & Clark College (93) (tie)

  • Sarah Lawrence College (100) (tie)

  • New College of Florida (100) (tie)

  • Earlham College (100) (tie)

  • Augustana College (100) (tie)

  • Bennington College (112) (tie)

  • Cornell College (116) (tie)

  • Hampden-Sydney College (116) (tie)

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List of schools that do not use the Common App (by ranking)

National universities

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2)

  • University of California system (15, 15, 28, 28, 33, 35, 60, 76, 82)

  • Georgetown University (22) (tie)

  • University of Washington (40) (tie)

  • Rutgers University—New Brunswick (40) (tie)

  • Texas A&M University–College Station (47) (tie)

  • Yeshiva University (105) (tie)

  • Brigham Young University—Provo (115) (tie)

  • Liberal arts colleges 

  • United States Naval Academy (3)

  • United States Air Force Academy (7)

  • United States Military Academy (West Point) (8)

  • Berea College (30) (tie)

  • Virginia Military Institute (63) (tie)

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian headshot

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.

 
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Dr. Shemmassian

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and well-known expert on college admissions, medical school admissions, and graduate school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into elite institutions.