The Foreign Service Journal, December 2016

100 DECEMBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT how to choose a college to how to apply for athletic scholarships. This is some- what similar to what’s offered on college prep software such as Naviance, a perk generally found only in financially secure school districts. Let’s Go Through the Sections As with the Common App, the Coali- tion App features a Profile section, where you input personal and contact informa- tion, as well as demographic, citizenship, school and family information. The Pro- file also asks you to self-report standard- ized test scores such as the SAT, ACT, English-language proficiency tests such as TOEFL or IELTS, and AP scores. There’s one section to list your course- work from grades 9-11, and another to start listing grade 12 courses. As with the Common App, there are slots in which to list your extracurricular activities and hobbies. Next comes the Locker. Here’s where you can upload creative writing, artwork, class projects, awards, audio files such as concerts and video files such as stage productions—all under a section called “Media.” Another section of the Locker allows you or your counselor to upload offi- cial documents—transcript and school profile, counselor recommendations (up to four), teacher recommendations (up to four) and other recommenders (up to eight), many more recommendations than the Common App permits. (The Coalition App wording reminds students that “not all institutions will accept these additional letters.”) The means of uploading official docu- ments such as transcripts is enabled once you start choosing your list of colleges to apply to. You may have to finish the entire first part of the application before High school counselors have had to scramble to get up to speed on the differences between the Coalition App and the Common App.