Transitioning to the Common Application would make it easier to attract a larger, more diverse pool of applicants. We can’t promise anything, but by easing the application process, perhaps MSU could get applications from students who would have never considered MSU before, maybe because they live outside of the state or didn’t know about MSU.

The inverse of that also is true. If it’s difficult for a plurality of students to apply to MSU without the use of the Common Application, high school students might not even bother to apply and the university might miss out on those potential Spartans. The University of Michigan made the switch before the 2010-11 school year, and according to the U-M News Service, the number of applicants increased by 25 percent the following year.

The Common Application assists universities in the search for a diverse student body. Especially in the case of public universities where the education students pay for is helped paid for by their tax dollars, applying should be similar — and easy — for all students. MSU should be in favor of it. Seeing the kind of increase in student application that U-M saw — or even a number close to that — could probably benefit the diversity of the student body at MSU.

The Common Application doesn’t necessarily change application standards for universities. University standards wouldn’t suddenly fall apart under the weight of more applicants. It just means there’s a larger pool of applicants for colleges to choose from.

University officials still are able to decide which applicants are best equipped to succeed at their university. Universities also can add a supplemental application onto the Common Application, which can have more specific questions, to get a better feel of the students that choose to apply.

High school students still have to have an application universities will be interested in. If a high school student wants to get into MSU, they still have to do MSU-quality work.

The Common Application does not make it easier for students to get into college, it just makes the application process itself easier.
High school seniors have enough to be worried about as they try to plan the next four years of their lives. MSU should attempt to make the application process easier for them, try to get as many students applying to the university as possible, and embrace the Common Application.