Common App for ASEAN Students: Entering Coursework, Converting GPA and Requesting Fee Waivers

Setting up your Common App profile

Create one Common App account and use it to apply to every member college on your list, from large state universities to small liberal arts colleges. Fill in your profile once. Your personal details, family information, and education history carry across every application, so get this section right before you move to college-specific questions.

Entering non-US coursework and grades

The Education section asks for your schools, courses, and grades. Enter your results exactly as your transcript reports them, in your own school's grading scale, whether that is percentages, an O-Level/A-Level letter system, a 10-point or 100-point scale, or a national exam score. The Common App gives you an option to add and describe a different grading scale for each school you attended, so use it instead of converting your own results into a US 4.0 GPA yourself. Admissions offices read international transcripts in context and either convert scores on their end or evaluate you against other applicants from your education system.

Some colleges ask for a separate credential evaluation from a service such as WES or ECE alongside your Common App submission. This requirement sits on the individual college's own requirements page inside the Common App portal, not in the shared Education section, so check each college you add to your list rather than assuming one rule applies everywhere.

Application fee waivers

The Common App fee waiver exists for applicants who cannot afford the standard per-college application fee. Common qualifying indicators include meeting income guidelines for a national financial assistance program, receiving public assistance, living in subsidized housing, being in foster care or a ward of the state, or having a school counselor confirm financial hardship directly. These indicators were built around the US context, so an ASEAN applicant without access to a US federal program often qualifies instead through a signed statement from a school counselor, an approved community-based organization, or an EducationUSA advising center confirming genuine financial need.

Fee waiver eligibility does not automatically apply at every member college. Some colleges grant fee waivers only to domestic applicants, others extend the same waiver to international students on request. Check each college's own fee waiver policy on its admissions page, and where the Common App flag does not cover you, email the admissions office directly and ask for an international applicant fee waiver.

Requesting the waiver step by step

Inside your Common App profile, answer the "ability to pay" question honestly, then select the specific reason your situation matches a fee waiver indicator. Your counselor approves the request from their own Common App counselor account, or you upload a signed statement if you apply without a school-based counselor. Submit this before you add colleges to your list, since some colleges only recognize the waiver once it is confirmed ahead of your application.

Inviting recommenders and school forms

Common App sends recommendation and school report requests directly to the teachers and counselors you invite, through its own recommender portal. International applicants without a formal "counselor" job title at their school list a principal, vice-principal, homeroom teacher, or another staff member who knows their academic record well, since Common App does not require a specific job title, only someone authorized to represent the school.

Deadlines set by each college, not by Common App

Common App itself has no single deadline. Every college sets its own Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision dates, visible on each college's requirements page inside your Common App dashboard. Track these separately for every school on your list, since an Early Decision deadline in November for one college sits alongside a January Regular Decision deadline for another.