Hi @a.cork there are not really any pros and cons. Because at the end of the day, you don’t really have a choice.

Most schools across the United States use the Common Application, however, there are instances where schools have their own internal application platform.

I’d say the main advantage to the Common App is just convenience, all of your applications are in one centralised location, things are streamlined, and easy to use. You only need to enter all of your core personal information once. As opposed to internal college application platforms, you’ll need to enter the same information on multiple occasions - obviously things like supplementary essays and questions will always be different for each college.

Most top colleges all use the Common App, well known colleges that have their own platforms or as you put it “direct applications” are:

• all of the University of California schools
• Georgetown University
• Columbia University (you have a choice between Common App and their platform, My Coalition.
• MIT

You can find out all the schools that use the Common App, here