Document Sending via Common App

How to send documents in cDocs

Shraddha Sahu avatar
Written by Shraddha Sahu
Updated over a week ago

Cialfo allows schools to send supporting application documents via Common App and Parchment. For universities that do not accept documents through these two Cialfo partners, we identify the document delivery method to those universities as Mail. It means that documents have to be sent directly to the college or university either by mail, email, or some other method outside of Cialfo.

BEFORE sending documents, we strongly recommend you go through our presubmission checklist.


Sending for Common App

Before documents can be sent for a student through Cialfo, the student must have linked their Common App with Cialfo (Read more about that process here) and the colleges must appear in the student's cDocs Profile Submission tab.

Colleges are added to the student's cDocs submission sidebar in two ways.

  1. Common App syncing has been turned on in Account - Configure - cDocs Preferences. This means that if a school has enabled this configuration, the colleges and universities in a student's Common App will sync and be added here.

  2. If Common App syncing has not been turned on, colleges must be added to the student's Applying List by adding through Universities tab or directly through the bookmark page through "+Add" button.

Re-sync with CA - Once a college is added to the student's Common App or Applications list (or the student edits the round or deadline in Common App), it could take up to 4 hours for Cialfo and Common App to sync and update that information. However, the counselor has the ability to manually sync by clicking the 'Sync' button in the student's cDocs Documents tab instead of having to wait for 4 hours. 


Now document sending for Common App is ready!

Additionally, you must make sure you have prepared the Common App forms in the documents tab and uploaded the needed document along with it. For example, if you'd like to send a Letter of Recommendation, you'd need to have a Common App Teacher Evaluation prepared along with it.

Once you've had all your documents prepared and uploaded, all you have to do is click "send"! We've even added a "Send all" button if you've already done all the needed document preparation to make things even easier and quicker for you.

When sending documents for Common App schools, kindly note that these files would be sent under their "One and Done" Policy:

Do note that Teacher Evaluation forms and Teacher Letter of Recommendations are not part of the "One and Done" Policy and must be sent separately. This is to provide counselors and students with the option of tailoring their letters of recommendations to specific schools.

"One and Done" Forms

Mandatory Documents

Optional Documents

School Report

Common App School Report, School Profile

Initial Transcript, Transcript, Other, Transfer Transcript

Counselor Recommendation

N/A

Counselor Letter of Recommendation

Mid-year Report

Mid-year transcript

Optional Report*

Optional transcript

*Up to 2 can be sent.

Forgot to include a transcript as part of the school report? You may use the Optional Report to send it to colleges, however, the transcript must be uploaded as "Optional Transcript"

Sending Common App Shared Documents

  1. First, Counselor Recommendation. This represents the Common App Counselor Recommendation Form. There should also be a Letter of Recommendation in it. Click on the circle next to Letter of Recommendation-Counselor. 

  2. Second, School Report. The School Report includes the Common App School Report created by the counselor, and the School Profile. This section will require you to select which documents should be attached to the School Report. The documents that can be sent along with the School Report are: Initial Transcript, Transcript, Transfer Transcript and Other.

  3. WORD OF CAUTION: Double check all of these documents before sending. Once they are sent, you cannot make any changes or send any additional documents. These documents will be shared with ALL colleges and universities to which a student submits a Common App.

  4. Once you have verified and selected the documents you want sent and are sure they are correct, press send for the Counselor Recommendation and press send for the School Report.

  5. This is the only time you will send Common App Shared Documents for this student. You will not be able to change them after they are sent.

  6. Notice that once sent, the status will change to green Sent and the timestamp will be updated.

Sending Common App Teacher Documents

  1. In the same submission tab, find the section for Common App Applications and you'll see a list of all of the student's applying colleges.

  2. Select the college you want to submit teacher recommendations for.

  3. Recommenders - Cialfo has included the recommendation requirements for each college. This information comes directly from Common App. If a college states: 2 Required - 4 Maximum, this means that 2 teacher recommendations minimum must be sent and that a maximum of 4 can be sent.

  4. Once teachers have both uploaded their recommendation letters in PDF format and completed the Common App Teacher Evaluation form, you are ready to send.

  5. Verify how many letters you want to send.

  6. For each recommender, select the blue button next to Letter of Recommendation and then press send.

  7. Note that it may take a while to send depending on the volume of applications attempting to be sent to Common App at that time. Once the documents have been sent, the status will change to Sent and the timestamp will be updated.


Completing the Early Decision Agreement

  1. If the student has indicated that they plan to apply Early Decision on their Common App, an Early Decision Agreement will appear beside the Delivery Method at the Submission page for this particular college or university.

  2. The counselor should read, click affirm, type their name/signature, and then submit their affirmation.


After Sending - Verifying Documents Are Sent

After you have sent documents, you will notice that the status will change. There will be a timestamp of when the documents were sent.

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