Common App adds first community college members

Common App is adding its first ever community college members, the organization announced in a press release Thursday. 

The seven new partner institutions are all members of the Illinois Community College system. Four of them—Sauk Valley Community, Rend Lake, Carl Sandburg and Black Hawk Colleges—are joining the platform immediately; another three institutions, Lincoln Land Community, Oakton and Triton Colleges, will join next admissions cycle. 

Common App has a few members that technically include community colleges, like Miami-Dade College in Florida, but those institutions also offer baccalaureate degrees. The new members offer associate degree programs only. 

In the press release, Common App CEO Jenny Rickard said she hoped the move would help promote college access and ease struggling community colleges’ recruitment efforts. 

“To close the gap in low- and middle-income students applying, we need to expand the types of institutions students can connect with,” she wrote.