Common App started as an experiment in 1975 with 15 colleges, led by college admission officers and school counselors to streamline the admission process for students. Today, Common App has grown to include more than 1,000 member institutions across the United States and around the world.
Much of this growth occurred after 2014, when the organization, in an effort to increase access, equity, and integrity in the college admissions process, opened its membership to all accredited, not-for-profit, undergraduate four-year degree-granting institutions.
This report shares season-end statistics for this most recent year of first-year applicant and application data, with trends going back for a full decade to bring attention to trends in applicants’ race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geography, and the types of institutions to which they apply.
According to the report, about 1.43 million distinct applicants submitted 9.47 million applications, an increase of 7 percent and 11 percent, respectively, from the 2022–23 cycle. Some of the most significant growth occurred in the number of historically underrepresented student applicants.