Before the Acceptance Letter: A Columbus Senior's Guide to the Common App

As college application deadlines approach, Columbus seniors face decisions about essays, extracurricular activities and academic records. Here is how Explorers can navigate the application process, avoid costly mistakes and tell their stories.

by Oscar Pinto

The Challenge Behind the Application

The first questions are simple: What's your name? What's your address? What high school do you attend? However, as students progress through the Common Application process, the questions become more personal.

For Christopher Columbus High School senior Michael Babun, one of the most meaningful answers began with a pressure washer.

Babun chose to write his college essay about Baboon Pressure Washing LLC, his pressure-washing and cleaning business. The experience taught him lessons about customer trust, pricing and problem-solving that could never be fully reflected in his grades or test scores.

How do you summarize four years of accomplishments? Which experiences deserve recognition? And, most importantly, how can an admissions officer understand who you truly are just by reading your application?

For seniors at Christopher Columbus High School, the application process represents more than just another assignment. It's an opportunity to show colleges the men they have become, beyond their grades, test scores and résumés.

With deadlines approaching, the challenge is not simply completing the application; it's making every answer count.

Columbus counselor Iris Martinez said college admissions representatives can recognize rushed applications through a lack of detail. The strongest applicants, she explained, devote enough time to presenting their experiences intentionally.

What Is the Common App?

For students applying to more than one university, the Common App offers a much more organized way to navigate the admissions process. It's all in one place.

The platform opened its 2026-27 application cycle Aug. 1, connecting applicants with more than 1,200 participating colleges and universities worldwide. Rather than repeatedly entering the same name, address and high school, students complete a shared application and then address each college's additional requirements.

However, a common misconception is that a common application means common expectations. Each university has its own deadlines, testing policies and supplemental questions.

Senior Eduardo Ortea is applying to the University of Southern California and Florida International University. He is using the Common App to complete both applications more quickly; however, FIU requires standardized test scores, while USC is test-optional.

Ortea said, “I’ve noticed that different universities value different things and vary on how strict they are with extracurricular activities, GPA, and test scores.”

Understanding those differences is an essential part of applying successfully.

For applicants like Ortea, the platform simplifies the process of applying to multiple universities, but it does not eliminate the responsibility of understanding what each institution expects.

Preparing Before Filling Out the Application

Before writing an essay or listing extracurricular activities, students must establish the foundation of their applications.

The process begins at commonapp.org, where students create a first-year student account and begin adding the colleges of their choice to their lists. From there, students can review each university's requirements, track deadlines and begin completing what each university requires.

Preparation can make the difference between an organized application and a last-minute scramble.

Ortea said, “As a transfer student I wasn’t familiar with the app and the benefits it contains.”

Students should gather their high school transcripts, course schedules, SAT, ACT or CLT scores, academic honors and awards, and extracurricular activities before beginning. They should also prepare details about their family backgrounds and educational histories, which the application requests.

For Columbus students balancing demanding classes, high-level athletics, award-winning clubs and service commitments, completing these steps early can leave more time for the sections requiring reflection and careful writing.

For senior Anthony Delpozo, that preparation began months before the application cycle opened.

"I began working on my Common Application since the beginning of the fourth quarter junior year," Delpozo said. "Starting early has helped me stay organized and spread out the work instead of doing everything at once. I have had more time to revise my essays, compare colleges, and keep track of deadlines."

His experience highlights an important distinction: Starting early is not simply about finishing first. It allows students to reconsider their choices, improve their writing and approach deadlines with greater confidence.

Inside the Application

Once the application begins, students will encounter multiple sections covering their academic and personal information and extracurricular activities.

The Profile and Family sections establish basic information about the applicant and his household. The Education section covers high school coursework and academic achievements, while Testing allows students to report exam scores according to each university's policies.

However, some universities require official scores to be sent through the SAT, ACT or CLT testing agencies.

For Columbus students taking Advanced Placement, honors and dual enrollment classes, identifying courses accurately is a must. Students should consult their transcripts and counselors rather than estimate academic information.

Martinez identified one frequently overlooked mistake as “not filling out the honors section” to showcase academic accomplishments and membership in honor societies.

But one of the most revealing portions of the application appears outside the classroom.

The Activities section requests students to describe their commitments outside of school, such as athletics, employment, volunteering, clubs and family responsibilities.

A student who is a swim instructor should go beyond writing "taught swimming lessons." A stronger description would explain what he taught, whom he taught and what responsibilities he took on.

The goal is not to make an ordinary experience sound like magic, but to communicate its significance accurately.

Martinez emphasized the importance of “really describing and quantifying everything” when explaining extracurricular involvement.

For students who have dedicated hundreds of hours to a sport, led an organization or balanced employment with schoolwork, those details can communicate the significance of their commitments more effectively than simply listing titles.

The difference lies not only in what a student accomplished, but in how clearly he explains its impact.

The Essay

A transcript can reveal academic performance. A résumé can summarize accomplishments. However, neither necessarily explains the experiences that shaped Columbus students and made them the young men they are today.

For many applicants, that responsibility falls to the personal essay.

For the 2026-27 application cycle, students can choose among seven Common App essay prompts, with responses limited to 650 words. The questions ask students to reflect on subjects ranging from personal growth and challenging experiences to identity, gratitude and intellectual curiosity.

The difficulty is rarely a shortage of experiences; it is choosing which experience tells the most meaningful story.

For example, senior Michael Babun wrote about his pressure-washing and cleaning business, Baboon Pressure Washing LLC.

“I wrote my college essay about my company Baboon Pressure Washing because it taught me more than any classroom ever has. Running a real business meant learning pricing, customer trust, and problem-solving on the spot, and I wanted colleges to see that side of me,” Babun said.

For Babun, the business represented more than an extracurricular activity. It provided an opportunity to show colleges the responsibilities he had taken on and the lessons he had learned outside the classroom.

On the other hand, senior Aidan Camayd wrote about being hospitalized after deep diving in the Keys.

Although their subjects are different, both students chose experiences that extended beyond their academic records, demonstrating the range of personal stories that can become college essays.

A compelling essay does not require an extraordinary tragedy or a trophy case of accomplishments. Its strength comes from specificity, reflection and the ability to reveal something that the rest of the application cannot highlight.

Rather than attempting to impress admissions officers with a dramatic story, students need to consider which story offers the clearest insight into who they truly are.

According to Martinez, what separates an average application from a standout one is “the amount of detail” a student provides and “the time they spend on an application.”

She also emphasized the importance of grammar, answering the prompt and arranging extracurricular activities intentionally, beginning with those most important to the applicant.

Ultimately, the strongest essay is not necessarily the one describing the most impressive accomplishment. It is the one that allows an admissions officer to understand something meaningful about the person behind it.

The Columbus Advantage

Although the application ultimately belongs to the students, seniors are not alone in this process.

The school's College and Career Guidance Department supports students through college exploration, application preparation and academic planning. Columbus also uses MaiaLearning, an online platform designed to assist with college research and the admissions process.

These resources help students organize their college searches while working through each university's requirements.

Martinez explained that the counseling department provides YouTube tutorials demonstrating how to connect Common App accounts with MaiaLearning, allowing counselors to track students' submitted applications.

Counselors also visit senior English classrooms at the beginning of the academic year to walk students through linking that common app, making sure their application lists are updated and showing them how to request letters.

Martinez said short instructional videos have also proved helpful in guiding students through the process.

However, students have to distinguish between their responsibilities and those handled through school counseling. Recommendation letters, transcripts and other supporting documents may require separate procedures from the student-submitted Common App.

Before submitting their applications, seniors must confirm the appropriate steps with their counselors, especially how MaiaLearning works in the process and when materials must be requested from the school.

Delpozo said, “Also, do not wait until the last minute to ask your counselor questions or request recommendations.”

In a process defined by deadlines and details, being proactive can prevent complications later.

The resources are available, but students must take the initiative to use them.

Avoiding Costly Mistakes

Finishing an application is completely different from submitting it.

Before sending their materials to their respective colleges, students should carefully review every section, verify their personal information and confirm that each college's questions have been completed.

According to Martinez, one common mistake occurs when students copy and paste their essays into the Common App without “checking the spaces and seeing if it's bolded or not.”

Although formatting may seem insignificant compared with grades or essays, it is another detail students should review before submitting their work.

The Common App submission process involves reviewing the application, addressing any required payment and completing the final submission. Students who pay an application fee but fail to finish the process have not submitted their applications.

Deadlines also require careful attention. Universities may require different materials at different times, including supplemental essays and other supporting documents.

Financial aid deadlines, including those for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, must also be tracked separately.

Once an application has been submitted, students should confirm their transcripts have been sent and monitor their university applicant portals for any outstanding requirements.

One final review takes only a short period of time, but it can prevent mistakes that become much harder to address after a deadline passes.

As Martinez's advice illustrates, a standout application is rarely the result of one extraordinary answer. It is the result of attention to detail throughout the entire process.

Conclusion

Eventually, the blank fields become completed answers. The essays are revised, the activities are organized and the application is ready for submission.

Yet the process asks students to accomplish something much more complicated than entering information into a website.

It asks them to reflect on their time in high school, recognize which experiences shaped them and determine what they hope to carry into the next chapter of their lives.

For Columbus seniors, the Common App marks a transition between the experiences that have defined their years as Explorers and the opportunities that await beyond campus.

The stories may differ. For Babun, it was running a business. For Camayd, it was an experience that led to hospitalization. For Delpozo, the application process began well before his senior year.

But each student faces the same challenge: translating years of experiences, responsibilities and personal growth into an introduction that colleges can understand.

No application can capture everything about a student. But a thoughtful one can offer colleges something meaningful: an accurate and personal introduction to the individual behind the transcript.