Also referred to as a 1003, or Uniform Residential Loan Application is a request for a loan that includes info about the potential borrower(personal info, assets, income, liabilities), the property and the requested type of loan (how much and what terms). The selected lender uses this information to make determine the credit worthiness of the borrower. 

The Loan Application typically refers to the entire contents of the pages that the borrower is required to initial or sign

Sample Loan Application

Contents of a Loan Application 

• Transmittal Summary/1008: General Loan Info to cut down on sifting through 
• 1003 page 1: Borrower Info (name,address etc) and Employment Info
• 1003 page 2: Income and Expense Information
• 1003 page 3: Assets and Liability info, Purchase Info(Price down, payment, Property taxes etc), Borrower Signature
• 1003 page 4: Continuation Page ( anything that ran over from the rest of the app. properties owned, multiple jobs etc.)
• Credit Authorization: Signature Page that allows lender to pull borrowers credit
• Good Faith Estimate: Estimation of Monthly payment, closing costs, etc.

Bankapedia's Take

The loan application is just that a loan application, it does not represent the actual terms of your loan, those are only documented in the closing package that you'll be signing at title. Take note, the only pages actually considered the "Loan Application" are the 4 pages of the 1003. You'll want to get a copy of the loan application to ensure that your income and asset information was filled out correctly. Additionally once you sign the credit authorization you've not only given permission for your broker to pull your credit, but also every wholesale bank he sends the loan too. So if you are going through a broker and not a bank, expect to have your credit pulled another 3 or 4 times.