college apps

Applying for College Just Got Even More Frustrating

College applications are stressful for everyone involved, from the high school seniors filling them out to the parents looking over their son or daughter’s shoulder. It’s part of what makes the Common Application so appealing: fill out one form, apply to a cornucopia of schools. So imagine the frustration of sitting down to fill out the form, which is supposed to make this super stressful process exceedingly less stressful, and, well, it’s busted. The box for the 150 word personal statement is cutting off entries. Kind of a big deal, yeah? And it’s a problem that’s affected countless students, not just a handful. With the application’s January 1 deadline just over a week away, and complaints from a whole bunch of students and parents already filed, the organization that runs the Common App has been scrambling for a fix, but the best they’ve been able to come up with is a link to a warning within the form. “Believe me, if there’s a way to do it, we’d do it. Maybe there’s a way out there we don’t know about,” said Rob Killion, executive director of the organization. The problem seems to be that the box for the statement can only hold 1000 characters, so if a 150 word entry comes in with more characters, the applicant is out of luck. Thankfully, some college officials, like Shawn Abbott at NYU know about the problem, and don’t penalize prospective students for it. “In a nutshell, I would empathize with students’ frustration,” he said. “A truncated essay is not going to be the end-all, be-all of an admissions decision.” Regardless, it’s just another reason why being a teen is the absolute worst.

Common Application Users Find a Glitch
 [NYT]

Applying for College Just Got Even More Frustrating