Skills / College application system
College application system
Put a whole college application season into one tracker. Every deadline, requirement, and document per school, with what is missing visible. Use when they say "I'm applying to college and drowning" or deadlines are near and nothing is written down.
Use this skill. Nothing to install.
Don't have an agent? · Raw file: skills/apply-to-college-system.md
Watch the first two minutes
This is how a session goes when the deadlines have already started slipping. Click through it.
Scripted example of a real session.
It's already November and I'm drowning
Drowning is a visibility problem before it is a work problem: nine schools times essays, letters, transcripts, fees, and aid forms is too many moving parts for anyone's head. The skill pulls every requirement from the school's own admissions page or your portal, checked during the session, because a tracker with guessed requirements is worse than no tracker. Then the first session ends with the top item actually done and every third-party request already sent. From there it is maintenance, one weekly slot at a time.
What you end up with
One sheet that holds the whole season. Here is a slice of one, mid-November, sorted the only way that matters.
- The first session ends with the top item done. Whatever it is: a form filled, a transcript ordered, a request sent. The tracker starts life already moving.
- Essays are tracked here and written by the student. The machine holds the deadline and the prompt; the words come from them, with drafts getting margin feedback.
- Third-party items carry an owner. Letters, transcripts, and counselor forms are the rows that slip, so every one is requested on day one and marked with who owes it.
- Scholarship and honors deadlines get their own rows because they are often earlier than the school's main deadline, and they hide on different pages.
Questions people actually ask
Will it write my essays or fill in my applications?
No. The skill's own rule is the machine and never the content: it does not write personal statements, supplemental answers, or activity descriptions, and it does not fill in or submit applications. When an essay blocks a checklist item, you draft and it annotates, the same feedback rules as the research paper workshop.
Where does the requirement list come from?
From each school's own admissions page and your actual portal, opened during the session. Nothing is entered from memory or guesswork, and your job during updates is to read the portal's status screens out loud rather than answer from recall.
What about rec letters and transcripts I don't control?
Those rows get an owner column and top priority, because other people's lead time is what slips. Every request goes out in the first session; the email-a-professor skill covers how to make the ask well.
Nine schools feels like hundreds of tasks. Is it?
Fewer than it feels like. Duplicate work collapses: one main essay serving several schools is one row, and shared items like aid forms appear once. Sorted by deadline, you only ever look at the top of the sheet, and the three nearest deadlines live on your real calendar with reminders.
Is this free?
The skill is free, no account, no catch. The agent you paste it into may or may not be: Gemini has the widest free tier, Copilot's free tier is enough to try it, ChatGPT and Claude free plans can also run it in a chat.
Where to go from here
What feeds the machine:
What runs alongside it:
Curious? Read the full skill — the exact instructions your agent gets
--- name: apply-to-college-system category: school description: Put a whole college application season into one tracker. Every deadline, requirement, and document per school, with what is missing visible. Use when they say "I'm applying to college and drowning" or deadlines are near and nothing is written down. --- # apply-to-college-system Turn a student's college applications from a fog of half-remembered requirements into one tracker that answers three questions at a glance: what is done, what is missing, and what is next. You build and maintain the machine. The essays and answers inside the applications are written by them. ## Rule zero: the machine, never the content You do not write application essays, personal statements, supplemental answers, or activity descriptions, and you do not fill in or submit their applications. When an essay blocks a checklist item, the workshop is what you offer: they draft, you annotate (the research-paper-workshop skill's feedback rules apply). Every requirement you track must come from the school's own admissions page or their application portal, checked this session — a tracker with guessed requirements is worse than no tracker. The student owns every portal account. Do not request, store, or enter portal passwords, identity numbers, payment details, or family financial information. For financial-aid forms, the student and family read the portal status and enter private figures themselves; record only the non-sensitive status and deadline in the tracker. ## Pull the real requirements Start from their actual list (the college-list skill produces one). For each school, open the admissions site and the relevant portal (Common App, Coalition, or the school's own) and record: - The deadline they are actually using — ED, EA, rolling, or regular — as a date, plus any separate scholarship or honors deadlines, which are often earlier. - Every required piece: application form, essay prompts and word counts, number of recommendation letters, transcript, test policy, fee or waiver, portfolio or audition, interview, and for aid the FAFSA/CSS Profile with their own deadlines. - What is already done — ask them to open their portals and read the status screens out loud rather than answer from memory. ## Build the tracker One spreadsheet, one row per school-requirement pair, columns: school, item, deadline, owner, status (done / in progress / not started / blocked), and notes. Then make it usable: - Sort by deadline. The top of the sheet is always "what's next". - Mark the items they do not control — recommendation letters, transcripts, counselor forms — and get every request for those sent today, since other people's lead time is the thing that slips (the email-a-professor skill covers the ask). - Collapse duplicate work: one main essay serving several schools is one item; each supplemental is its own row with its own prompt pasted into the notes. - Put the three nearest deadlines on their real calendar with a reminder a week before each. ## Run the machine End the first session by doing the top item together, whatever it is — a recommendation request sent, a transcript ordered, the Common App activities section filled from real activities in their words. Then set the rhythm: a fixed weekly slot where they update statuses from the portals and you re-sort what's next. After each submission, the row goes to done and the aid rows for that school become the new top. ## Done - Every school's full requirement list in one sheet, from official sources, sorted by deadline - Every third-party item requested and marked with who owes it - The top item actually completed in the first session - A weekly slot on their calendar to run the machine The machine's whole value is that nothing is discovered in the last week. If a status screen ever surprises them, the tracker was stale — update it in the moment, together.