# Dabima Best Practices for Students
Welcome to Dabima - your source to search for colleges, build your perfect list, see all the work you need to do and actually do the work. Dabima is designed to support you and the people supporting you through this process.
This document summarizes some of the best practices for students to use Dabima specifically related to:
* Setting Your Preferences - personalize your college search and config
* Exploring Colleges
* Selecting and Adding Colleges
* Suggested Colleges
* My Colleges
* My Plan - Seeing Your Workplan
* My Plan - Doing Your Work
* My Locker
* Feedback & Announcements
* Resources
* Copying Activities List, Awards/Honors List and Personal Essays to the Common App
### Setting Your Preferences
Access your profile by selecting your initials in the upper right hand corner
Completing the Academic Profile, Financial Info, and Admissions & Community sections allows Dabima to customize your college search and provide:
* My Chances — likelihood of admission to a college (Likely, Target, or Reach). Takes into account acceptance rate, GPA (unweighted), SAT/ACT (scores and submission requirements), and coursework
* Suitability — college fit rating (A, B, or C)
* Net Estimated Cost — an estimate of what you will actually pay, helping you assess financial fit. Takes into account family income tier, loans and room and board.
### Exploring Colleges
Select Explore Colleges from the left-hand menu. You can search by Name or by Attribute. Select Dabima Suggestions to pre-fill your preferences, and remember to scroll down when searching by attributes to see all available options.
How search filters work:
* Selecting multiple options within the same category (e.g. Big City and City under the Setting category) returns schools matching any of those options.
* Selecting options across different categories narrows results — schools must meet all category criteria simultaneously.
* So in the screenshot example, Dabima would show you colleges that are
* Part of LUCA Favorites
* Suitability of either A or B
* Proximity of Far
* Setting of either Big City of City
* Size of either Large or Mid-sized
Note: LUCA Favorites is an example of an optional custom filter set by the organization you are working with. Your organization may have different custom filters or none at all.
### Selecting and Adding Colleges
Interested in getting more details on a college? Simply tap the college to learn more.
Use the tabs to explore:
* Comparison of your profile against enrolled students at that college
* Net Estimated Cost — your estimated real cost after merit and financial aid
* Academic tab — programs offered, including accelerated medical, dental, and nursing tracks
* Work tab — a preview of what is required to apply
When you're ready, select Add to My Colleges or the + icon on the college card. You'll choose to Follow or Apply along with all the apply types available for that college (Regular, Early Action, Early Action II, Early Decision, Early Decision II, Rolling) and set your own target submission date. You can update your list at any time.
*Pro tip - if you are using your phone you can swipe right to add a college to your list and swipe left to remove a college from your list.*
### Suggested Colleges
Members of your support team — such as counselors — can suggest colleges for you to consider. When a suggestion is made, you'll receive an email and/or text notification (assuming you have notifications turned on in your profile). Select the link to review the suggestion and decide whether to add it to your list.
### My Colleges
My Colleges gives you a quick side-by-side view of all the colleges on your list, including deadlines, cost, size, setting, and more — making it easy to compare your options at a glance.
### My Plan - Seeing Your Workplan
Select My Plan to see all the tasks involved in your college journey. Tasks are organized into two categories:
#### Common Work
Tasks in Common work are not tied to a specific college. It can include things like:
* Personal Essay\*
* Activity Lists\*
* Awards and Honors Lists\*
* Resumes
* Resources on Financial Aid (FAFSA, CSS), Standardized Testing, STARS (self reported transcript reporting)
* Additional writing requirements\*
\*Currently modeled around the Common App. Support for Questbridge, UC, and CUNY applications is coming
If you are using Dabima through an organization like a high school or community based organization (CBO), you may also notice tasks that are specific to that organization. These could include things like:
* Additional essays
* Brainstorming exercises
* Deadline tasks associated with submitting content (e.g. complete part of your Common App by a defined date, have a first cut of your college list by a due date)
Things to note:
* Due dates and required tasks automatically adjust based on college requirements and your target dates. For example, if a college requires CSS and STARS, those common tasks automatically change from optional to required.
* Personal essay due dates adjust based on your target application submission date.
* Completing a Common Work task automatically updates its status for all colleges that require it. This will be discussed in more detail in the **My Plan - Doing Your Work** section.
#### College Specific work
Dabima automatically adds colleges you are applying to (not just Following) to My Plan. The following details are tracked for each college:
* Deadline dates for each application type, plus your personal target date
* Average GPA and SAT/ACT scores
* Admit Rate — adjusted for your application type and in-state/out-of-state (e.g. Early Decision vs. Regular Decision) where data is available
* Estimated Cost — based on in-state/out-of-state status and your financial questionnaire data
* Common Work requirements specific to that college (personal essay, activity lists, etc.)
* FAFSA — assumed required/accepted for all colleges
* CSS — flagged if the college requires the College Scholarship Service Profile
* Test Policy — Optional, Mandatory, or Blind
* Letters of Recommendation — requirements and notes
* Supplemental Essays — prompts, required/recommended/optional status, character limits, and links to the source. Note: sources linked to the Common App will only appear if that college has been added to your Common App account
* Other Work — portfolios, auditions, interviews, special projects, linked to the college's website
Dabima also tracks specific requirements for individual programs offered within a college. Examples would be:
* Applying to the Engineering school
* Applying to an Honors Program
* Applying for a BFA in Theatre
Requirements tracked include:
* Additional letters of Recommendation along with optional notes on any related requirements
* Standardized Test Policy requirements for that specific program along with optional notes (e.g. thresholds, etc.)
* Supplemental Essays along with prompts, if the essay is required, recommended or optional, character length, etc. Essays will link to the application source. Note: sources tied to the Common App will only appear if the college has been added to your Common App account and you have selected the relevant application options. For example, an additional essay prompt for a college’s engineering program will only appear if you indicated interest in applying to that engineering program within the application. If you have not set up the Common App correctly, these links may result in an error. Links may also reference the college website directly.
* Other Work including details on Portfolios, Auditions, Special Projects, Interviews, etc. Other work will link to the details often contained directly on the college’s website
### My Plan - Doing Your Work
Dabima not only shows you what to do — it provides tools to manage and share your essays, activity forms, honors/awards forms, resumes, and more.
#### Marking Tasks as Done/Skipped
Select the icon next to any task in My Plan to mark it as Done or Skipped. You can change the status at any time by selecting the Done or Skipped button again to unmark it.
#### Managing forms (Activities, Honors/Awards)
Select the Activities List or Academic Honors & Awards List task to manage your information. Dabima saves a draft of your active changes. Select Edit to begin, then Save to keep your changes or Cancel to discard them.
* Team and org members have read-only access unless your counselor has explicit edit permission. They can provide feedback you may incorporate at your discretion.
* You can create as many activities as you like, though the Common App supports a maximum of 10.
* Character limits are not enforced, but Dabima will visually indicate when you are over the limit.
* Forms are currently modeled after the Common App. Support for Questbridge, UC, and CUNY applications is coming.
#### Managing Essays
Dabima lets you create multiple versions of any essay, each linked to a specific prompt and college where applicable. Essays are automatically shared with your team.
* Do not upload essays directly. Instead, select the task (e.g. personal essay, supplemental essay) and create a new version. If you have already started writing elsewhere, copy and paste your content into Dabima after creating the version.
* Team members have ‘comment/suggest’ access by default. Organizations can grant counselors edit access if preferred.
* When opening essays, make sure your browser is logged into the Google account connected to your Dabima account. If you are logged into a different Google account, you will see a 'You need access' message.
#### Managing Resumes, Surveys, Questionnaires
Resumes, surveys, and questionnaires work like essays but open with a set template for you to fill in. Only one version of each is maintained in Dabima.
#### Hiding and Favoriting College Specific Programs
It is easy to hide or favorite specific college programs that you are or are not interested in.
* On desktop/laptop/tablet: select the Hide / Hide All link to hide a program, or the star icon to favorite it.
* On mobile: swipe right to favorite a program, swipe left to hide it.
#### Updating Application Status
Go to the college in My Plan and select the appropriate status category to update your application status at any time.
#### Managing Apply Type/Target Dates
Select your current apply type in My Plan and follow the menu options to change your application type or target date at any time.
#### Adding a College to the Common App
Select Add to Common App to open the Common App login page in a new tab. After signing in, the college will be added to your Common App list — provided you haven't yet reached the 20-college maximum.
### My Locker
My Locker gives you a central view of everything you are working on, regardless of which task or college it's associated with.
* Jump directly to any task or document
* Sort and filter by task type, status, or last modified date
* Customize the column layout to match your preferences
### Feedback & Announcements
This section centralizes all communication from your team in one place.
* Feedback is tied to a specific piece of work, such as an essay.
* Announcements are from your counselors — general updates and heads-ups about the process.
You can always request feedback from people on your team when you are working on a task. Just select the feedback tab on the right side of your screen and the request feedback icon:
### Resources
Resources are available throughout Dabima and surface relevant guidance right where you need it — whether you're building your college list, writing your personal essay, or navigating financial aid. A dedicated Resources section also lets you browse and access all available materials in one place.
### Copy Activities, Awards/Honors & Personal Essay to Common App
Dabima's Chrome extension lets you automatically copy your Activities List, Honors/Awards List, and Personal Essay directly to the Common App, saving you time and reducing manual copy-paste errors.
Requirements
* Chrome browser on a desktop, laptop, or tablet (not supported on mobile)
* Must be logged into the Common App before using the extension
*How It Works*
Activities & Honors/Awards
Select the Common App Activities Page or Common App Honors Page button to navigate to the correct section of the Common App, then select Sync to Common App to replace your current Common App content with what Dabima has on file. A few things to keep in mind:
* Only the first 10 Activities and first 5 Honors/Awards items will be copied
* If any field exceeds the Common App character limit, Dabima will automatically truncate the content to fit
* Review your Common App after copying to confirm everything looks as expected
Personal Essay
Select the Common App Essays Page button to navigate to the correct section of the Common App. Dabima will display quick links to your essay versions — you will still need to copy and paste the content into the Common App essay field.
Visit the following link to install the Chrome extension:
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