FAMILY
The family section of the Common App asks for information regarding a student's immediate family members. It typically includes fields to provide details about the student's parents, including their names, occupations, educational backgrounds, and contact information. The section also inquires about the number of siblings the student has and their educational status.
Summary & Analysis of Changes
The changes within the Family section of the Common App, while few, are mainly indicative of the increase of lower-income applicants. The National Center for Children in Poverty says that 36% of children in low income families have parents who did not attend college. Not unrelated is the fact that, since 2013-14, there has been a 90% increase in first generation college student applicants. There has also been a 110% increase in applicants who qualify for a Common App fee waiver. At the same time, there has also been an increase of flagship institutions becoming members of Common App.
Lower-income college students are more likely to commute to college from home, so the inclusion of more public Universities and flagship institutions has made applying to college through Common App more accessible for low-income applicants. This has corresponded with the inclusion of more unconventional living/family situations in the Family section. This follows from The National Center for Children in Poverty’s conclusion that families with less than two parents or are living under a legal guardian/ward of the state are much more likely to experience poverty than those with two parents who have steady sources of income.
Since 2013 there has been a 122% increase in applicants from the lowest quintile of US zip codes, and as the applicant pool grows, the application has to grow with it. The Education Trust and National Center for Education Statistics states that student parents are more likely to hold part time or full time jobs outside of their educational and parental responsibilities, more likely to be people of color, and more likely to fall into the low-income category.Subsequently, the inclusion of the question, “if you have children, how many?” indicates the effort of Common App to include a more diverse student cohort as well as people from low income backgrounds. Approximately one-fifth of college students are also college parents, so their inclusion within Common App allows the organization to accommodate millions more applicants. Finally, the inclusion of all these questions and specificities signals to colleges that the student is more likely to apply for financial aid.
Timeline
2007-2008
In the 2007-2008 application round the “Family” section of the application asked for each parent’s contact information, address, occupation, name of employer, highest degree earned, and the name of their graduate and undergraduate school. It also asked the applicant to provide the marital status of their parents, and if divorced, the date of divorce had to be provided. The section also asked with whom the applicant made their permanent home and if “Parent 2” was living, and if not, asked for the “Date deceased”. Additionally the application asked “Please give the names of your brothers or sisters. If they have attended college, give the names of the institutions attended, degrees, and approximate dates.” The components of this section remained more or less constant for the years to come excluding some minor changes.
click here to view the 2007-2008 application
2008-2009
In the 2008-2009 application instructions and an explanation were provided at the top of the section stating “Please list both parents below, even if one or more is deceased or no longer has legal responsibilities toward you. Many colleges collect this information for demographic purposes even if you are an adult or an emancipated minor. If you are a minor with a legal guardian (an individual or government entity), then please list that information below as well. If you wish, you may list step-parents and/or other adults with whom you reside, or who otherwise care for you, in the Additional Information section or on an attached sheet.”
The application also provides the options of “Mother” “Father” or “Unknown” next to parent one and parent two. Additionally, a section for “legal guardian” is provided after “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”. The application also began to ask for the “Country of birth” of the parents but did not include this question in the “legal guardian” segment.
2010-2011
Except for formatting changes, the 2008-2009 version of the family section was used until the 2010-2011 application when minor changes were made. “Home phone” turned into “Preferred Telephone”, the CEEB of parents’ colleges was requested, and the grade year of siblings if they were still in K-12 schooling was requested.
Sources
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Common App
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Freeman, Mark, Brian Kim, Preston Magouirk, and Trent Kajikawa. Rep. Growth and Change: Long-Term Trends in Common App Membership. Common App Data Analytics and Research, 2021.
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