Technical glitches with the Common Application, an online college application accepted by more than 500 institutions, is forcing many schools to delay application deadlines and frustrating anxious high schoolers.
The Common Application is using Facebook and Twitter to update users on its progress. As of Monday morning, it reported progress with some features and said it is closely monitoring the system for problems.
The Common App is designed to streamline the admissions process. Students can apply to multiple schools using just one online application. Cornell University is among the schools that accept the Common App.
But, since a program upgrade in August, the Common App website has been riddled with problems. Students have had difficulty with log ins, saving data and uploading documents. On Saturday evening, the company’s help center even went offline for three hours. Many students are using social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook, to vent about their frustrations. In Facebook posts, students even reported trying four or five different browsers and both PCs and Mac computers, but were still were unable to access or update their applications.
For college admissions officers, the Common App problems mean they can not download and view prospective students’ applications. This is further delaying the process. At high schools, administrators have reported problems uploading students’ documents, including transcripts and recommendations.
To ease pressure, many schools are pushing back their deadlines. Among the changes, Nov. 1 deadlines have been pushed back to Nov. 8 at Northwestern, the University of Chicago, Duke, Columbia, Barnard, Dartmouth and Tufts. Boston University announced a delay to Nov. 15, while Syracuse postponed its Nov. 15 deadline to Dec. 1. So far, Cornell has not changed its deadlines.
The Common App is a non-profit member organization governed by a Board of Directors, who are mostly college admission deans and secondary school college guidance counselors. The Common App was launched in 1975 and currently 517 U.S. and international schools accept the application. There is a version for freshman admissions and also for transfer students.
There is a smaller, for-profit competitor, the Universal Application, however it is used by a much smaller group of schools. This fall, just 33 institutions were signed up to accept the Universal College App.
Now, the Universal College App is trying to capitalize on its competitor’s problems. In social media postings, it points students to its own application. One recent Tweet reads: “The @UniversalApp is here to help anyone frustrated by issues with other # college #application systems http://ow.ly/pX2TU .”
The message may be getting through. Since Friday, Tufts University and Princeton University announced they will begin accepting the Universal College App.