The Common App Summer Reset: A Complete Checklist for August 1st

If you have a rising senior in the house, you've probably already heard the words "Common App" more times this summer than you'd like. So here's one more — but a useful one.

Every year, Common App closes for a short stretch in late July, then reopens August 1st for the new application cycle. This year, it closes July 28th at 5pm ET and comes back online August 1st for the 2026–27 season.

We want to walk you through exactly what this means, what to do while it's closed, and — more importantly — the right order to do things once it's back. A few of these steps are easy to get wrong if you rush through them, so we'd rather you have the full picture now than scramble on August 1st.

Student updating application on computer

First, the good news: this is completely normal

If this is your family's first time going through the process, a "platform closing" might sound alarming. It isn't. This happens every single year. Common App needs a short window to reset the system for the new class of applicants, update prompts, and clear out the previous cycle's data.

Nothing is broken, and nothing is being taken away — it's just routine maintenance.

That said, "routine" doesn't mean "nothing to do." There's real, productive work you can get done in these few days, and a specific sequence you'll want to follow once the platform is back.

While Common App is closed: what to actually do

You don't need to just wait around for August 1st. Here's how to use the downtime well:

1. Draft your personal statement offline. The Common App essay prompts aren't changing for this cycle, so there's no reason to wait. Open a Google Doc and start writing. You'll simply paste your draft in once the system reopens.

2. Finalize your college list. Use this window to visit the admissions website for every school you're considering. Confirm Early Action and Early Decision deadlines directly from the source — don't rely on memory or last year's numbers.

3. Map out your August plan. Sketch a rough timeline for how and when you'll tackle each school's supplemental essays before the school year starts. Even a loose plan now will save a lot of stress later.

4. Create your Common App account now, if you haven't. If you already have one, your basic information and essay drafts will roll over automatically into the new cycle. If you don't, do it before the freeze — it takes five minutes and means one less thing to think about on August 1st.

August 1st: the order actually matters

Common App's reopening day is the busiest day on the platform all year, so it helps to know exactly what you're doing before you log in. Here's the sequence we recommend:

Step 1 — Roll over your account. Log in and let your account roll over into the new cycle. Your personal statement, activities list, and demographic information all carry forward automatically — nothing gets lost here.

Step 2 — Add your schools, then sign your FERPA release. Add every school on your list to your dashboard. Then head to the "My Colleges" tab, select one school, and sign that school's FERPA release. Once you do this for one school, it automatically populates across every school on your dashboard. This step matters more than it looks — you cannot invite teachers or counselors to submit recommendations until it's done.

Step 3 — Invite your recommenders — even if you already did this before the shutdown. If your high school processes recommendations through Common App, this is the moment to send those invitations. And here's the part that trips people up: if you invited a teacher or counselor before the platform closed, that invitation was wiped out in the reset. Send it again, fresh, after August 1st.

Step 4 — Copy over the new supplemental prompts. Open each school's writing supplement inside Common App and copy the exact 2026–27 prompts into a new document — one per school, or one master doc organized by school. Your school-specific data from before the reset doesn't carry over, so treat this as a clean slate rather than assuming last year's prompts still apply.

A heads-up about August 1st itself

Because so many students log in at the exact same time, expect the site to be slow — and don't be surprised if it glitches or crashes for a bit. This isn't a sign anything is wrong with your account. Give it some time and try again later in the day, or the next morning, if things are moving slowly.

The bottom line

None of this is complicated on its own — the tricky part is doing things in the right order so you're not backtracking later. Use the closed window to get ahead on your essay and your research, then follow the four steps above once Common App reopens: roll over, sign the FERPA release, invite recommenders, and copy the new prompts.

Bookmark this one. You'll want it again on August 1st.