Campus Pride and Common App Release Guide to Updated Name, Sex, and Gender Questions

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As part of their ongoing collaboration, Campus Pride and Common App have released “A Brief Guide to Common App’s Name, Sex, and Gender Questions for Member Institutions.” The guide aims to help colleges and universities understand and utilize the information provided by Common App in the 2022-2023 application cycle. The guide is available for download at CampusPride.org/Publications.

Common App is used by over 1 million students as they apply to more than 1000 colleges and universities each year. Campus Pride is proud to collaborate with Common App on their Evolving the Application initiative, which aims to reduce the barriers students face in applying to college. For over a decade, Campus Pride has advocated for greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ students in college admissions. As part of that advocacy, Campus Pride has offered strategic recommendations to make the Common App more inclusive of LGBTQ+ prospective students, especially trans and nonbinary applicants.

“Common App is to be applauded for recognizing the importance of students being able to bring their authentic selves to the college application process. It’s equally critical that colleges and universities know how to use the information students provide in ways that support them when they apply and matriculate,” said Dr. Genny Beemyn, Campus Pride Trans Policy Clearinghouse Coordinator and the author of the guide.

Since some of the new language in the application may be unfamiliar to those working in higher education admissions, Campus Pride and Common App recognized the need to provide definitions and helpful information about best practices. To that end, Campus Pride developed “A Brief Guide to Common App’s Name, Sex, and Gender Questions for Member Institutions,” which provides details about recent and expected changes to the name, sex, and gender questions. The guide also provides recommendations for how colleges and universities should utilize the information acquired from these Common App questions.

Last year, Common App made changes to the language used for legal sex and gender identity, as well as offering additional options for indicating pronouns. This year, Common App changes have included clearer language about legal names and other names in use, as well as the addition of Mx. to the list of honorifics that can be selected. Additional changes to the application are planned for the 2023-2024 application cycle.

“Campus Pride looks forward to ongoing collaboration with Common App,” said Shane Mendez Windmeyer, Executive Director of Campus Pride. “There is much work to be done to continue addressing the evolving inclusion needs of prospective LGBTQ+ college students.”

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Since 2001, Campus Pride has been the leading national organization dedicated to building future LGBTQ and ally leaders and creating safer communities at colleges and universities. Learn more at CampusPride.org.