Who Should Own the Common App Account?

Who Should Own the Common App Account?

Your child should own the Common App account: their email address, their password, their login. Common App's Terms of Use make the account holder "ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE" for everything done through it, "WHETHER OR NOT INDIVIDUALLY EXECUTED AND/OR AUTHORIZED BY YOU". An agent or consultant should never hold the password.

Account ownership is an agent red flag a parent can check in five minutes, without reading a single essay. If an education agent created the account with the agency's email, holds the password, or lists its own staff as the school counselor, everything it does is recorded as your child's. This page quotes the rules, shows which agent practices cross Common App's fraud policy, gives you a five-minute check, and explains how to take the account back. For the wider question of what agents may and may not do, see education agents and US college applications.

Common App's Terms of Use (dated October 24, 2025), its Fraud Policy (dated August 2023) and every college page quoted below were checked on October 30, 2026.

What Common App's terms say about the login

Three clauses in the Terms of Use settle the question.

The password cannot be handed over. "You will be responsible for the confidentiality and use of your username and password and agree not to transfer or resell your use of or access to the Solution to any third party." ("Solution" is Common App's word for its whole system.)

The account holder answers for everything. "YOU ARE ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD AND FOR ANY AND ALL ACTIVITIES … THAT ARE CONDUCTED THROUGH YOUR ACCOUNT, WHETHER OR NOT INDIVIDUALLY EXECUTED AND/OR AUTHORIZED BY YOU". The same sentence goes on to say Common App may treat every input "AS IF MADE EXCLUSIVELY BY YOU."

Information given for your child counts as theirs. "if any information provided by you (or on your behalf under your direction or knowledge) is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete or contains a misrepresentation, we reserve the right to terminate this Agreement and your use of the Solution and/or disclose to our members what other members you had applied to." An agent typing into the account is acting "on your behalf". If it types something false, the consequence lands on your child.

The terms also require "accurate, current and complete information about yourself … (including your email address)." An agency inbox is not your child's email address.

For 2026–27, Common App's first-year update deck says students "will be required to verify their email address upon account creation or when changing the email address in their account." Whoever controls that inbox controls verification.

Agent practices that cross the fraud policy

Common App's Fraud Policy lists six circumstances in which fraud may occur. Four describe practices an agent can slip into:

The policy also says who it covers. "Registered Users may include, for example, first-year or transfer student applicants (or their parent or guardian, as applicable), counselors, teachers, advisors, or other professionals who work with applicants."

Two more lines matter for the email question:

• Common App will "provide written notice to the Registered User alleged of fraud", and people found to have committed fraud "will be immediately notified by Common App in writing, via their registered email account."
• The outcome "may include permanent suspension, temporary suspension, or termination of their Common App user account, and disclosure of the Fraud to the Registered User's 'My Colleges List.'"

Our reading: if the registered email belongs to the agent, the agent receives that notice and the ten-business-day window to appeal that the policy gives. Your child may not learn of it in time.

What colleges say about agents

• Stanford (international page): "The Office of Undergraduate Admission does not partner or work with paid agents or credentialing services. It is expected that all students complete their application materials without the use of such services."
• Columbia (international page): "Columbia Undergraduate Admissions does not authorize or work with any independent agents anywhere in the world for our recruitment efforts."
• Harvard (requirements): "If we discover a misrepresentation during the admissions process, you will be denied admission. If you have already been admitted, your offer will typically be withdrawn."

None of these colleges says it checks who logs in. The point is that the consequences of an agent's mistake or misstatement fall on the applicant, and the terms make the account the record of who did what.

A five-minute check for parents

Sit with your child and open the Common App account together. Answer five questions.

1. Whose email is on the account? It should be an address your child reads every day, not an agency address and not a shared family one if your child does not check it.
2. Who knows the password? Only your child. If anyone else knows it, change it.
3. Who is invited as the counselor? Open the list of invited recommenders. The counselor's name and email should belong to a real staff member at your child's school, at a school email address. If your school has no counselor, a principal or teacher can fill the role; see applying to US colleges without a counselor.
4. Who are the recommenders, and whose emails are listed? Each should be the teacher's own address.
5. Who will press Submit? Your child, after reading every page of the preview.

If any answer is wrong, take the account back today:

• Change the password. The terms say that if "your account with us is no longer secure, you must promptly change your password by visiting https://apply.commonapp.org and immediately notify us of the problem."
• Change the account email to your child's own address. Under the 2026–27 rule, the new address must be verified.
• Correct any counselor or recommender contact details that are not the real person's.
• Read the submitted or saved essays. If an agent wrote them, see what to do if an agent wrote your essay.

Our view: if an agency refuses to work without your child's password, end the contract. The countercase: a family with no English speaker at home may genuinely need help with forms and deadlines. That help does not need the password. It needs your child at the keyboard with the helper beside them.

Help that does not need your child's password

• Invite the helper as an Advisor, if they need to track progress. Common App's recommender guide lists Advisor as a first-year recommender type and says "The Advisor role does not allow users to complete and submit forms." That separates watching from doing.
• Share drafts outside Common App. Comments in a shared document leave the writing, and the account, with your child.
• Work side by side. A helper can explain a question while your child types the answer.
• Get feedback, not rewrites. The Common App essays hub collects the essay guides your child will use. For the line between help and authorship, see how much parents should help with the college essay, and for vetting paid help, whether admissions consultants are worth it.

Students checking who can see a Common App essay can use the access table there.

Questions about Common App account ownership

Can a consultant or agent submit the Common App for my child?

The terms forbid transferring access "to any third party", and they treat everything done through the account as your child's. Your child should press Submit.

Can a parent create the Common App account?

A parent can help with setup. The terms require the account holder to give "accurate, current and complete information about yourself", including an email address, so an applicant account should carry your child's own details and email. Let your child set the password.

Can our agent be listed as my child's counselor?

No. A non-school person in the counselor slot is "materially inaccurate … counselor … contact information" under the fraud policy.

The agent already has the password. Is it too late?

No. Change the password and the email now. If you think false information was entered, read every section before anything else is submitted. In a homeschool, the parent who supervises is invited as counselor; the homeschool counselor letter example shows what that role writes.

Get a free review of your Common App essay

Your child, not you, runs the review, from their own account. Get a free Quick Review of your Common App essay against GradPilot's Common App personal essay rubric, which reads whether the essay is built on one main moment, told through specific detail, with meaning that grows from the story. If the essay is about background or identity, the Common App background and identity rubric reads that prompt. Read the feedback together; the rewriting stays with your child.

Sources

Retrieved October 30, 2026.

• Common App, Terms of Use (date of last update October 24, 2025; read through Common App's page data): password confidentiality; responsibility for all account activity; information provided on the user's behalf; changing a password.
• Common App, Fraud Policy (date of last update August 2023; read through Common App's page data): fraud circumstances; Registered Users; notice by registered email; appeal window; outcomes.
• Common App, Recommender guide: Advisor role cannot complete or submit forms.
• Common App, What's New with Common App, First-Year 2026–2027: email verification.
• Stanford University, International Applicants: no paid agents.
• Columbia University, International Applicants: no independent agents.
• Harvard College, Application Requirements: misrepresentation consequences.