Prairie State Wire

An online application system that all of Illinois’ 12 public universities will use for the 2021-2022 application season has already received positive reviews from Northern Illinois University, an institution that has been using it since last year.

The Common App platform that state universities will use is scheduled to launch the 2021-2022 application season Aug. 1, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said March 19 in a release. The universities will be members of the nonprofit organization that runs the online application system.

Northern Illinois University, the University of Illinois Chicago and Chicago State University were Common App members before the rest of the public universities followed, a Common App blog said. 

Sol Jensen, vice president of Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communications at Northern Illinois University. | Facebook

Using Common App, students can apply to several schools with one application, the NIU website said.

“When a student includes Northern Illinois University (NIU) on their list of schools on the Common Application or applies to NIU because of the Huskie Pledge (a grant program) or Rockford Promise (scholarship program), it opens up a whole new conversation,” Sol Jensen, NIU vice president of Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communications, said on the university’s website. “It changes how we communicate with them and increases our opportunities to tell them about all that NIU has to offer, which certainly increases the odds of one day getting those students to become Huskies.”

Common App will make students’ and families’ exploration of public universities easier, Illinois deputy governor for education Jesse Ruiz said in a March 25 Facebook post.

“Thanks to Governor Pritzker, Illinois becomes only 1 of 2 states in the nation to have all its public universities on the Common App,” Ruiz said on his Facebook post.

Public universities joining the initial three are Governors State University, Illinois State University, University of Illinois Springfield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northeastern Illinois University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Eastern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, the blog said.

Nearly 900 institutions of higher education are represented on Common App, its website said. Common App is used by 35 Illinois public and private institutions, the Illinois government press release said.

Pritzker proposed $1 million in Illinois’ fiscal year 2022 budget to fund the universities’ partnership with Common App, according to the Illinois Budget in Brief.