College application time, a time period where underclassmen spot seniors with sleep deprived eyes and frantic looks on faces. You hear, “Wait, that paper is due then?” and “What colleges are you applying to? Any out of state?” over and over again. Suddenly it becomes monotonous and automatic with embedded replies but no solution to the overwhelming deadlines that are near the end of 2013.
Most students are using the Common Application, a simple and effective way to send out the same information to multiple colleges and universities. The Common Application represents 10 colleges and universities in North Carolina. Among those schools are Davidson College, Duke University, Guilford College, Meredith College, Salem College, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, Wake Forest University and Warren Wilson College. Some of these schools such as Wake Forest offer the application through their website and admit The Common Application or the application on Wake Forests’ admissions site.
The Common Application serves as a folder for the colleges of a student’s choice. The Common App eliminates writing one’s home address or telephone number and offers one essay per school aside from any extra essays per the schools request. However, typing essays and tediously adding information is becoming a little less dynamic than it has in the past years.
“It [The Common App] never saved my information. My essays would always be erased. I would have to enter in dates and activities several times,” said Kaitlyn Rigano, senior.
Some schools are being affected more than others. Georgia Institute of Technology has an October 15th deadline but was not able to begin reviewing applications because of the errors. GIT has pushed the deadline to Nov. 1 to give prospective students more time to fix up errors that were not their fault to begin with. From a local standpoint, UNC-Chapel Hill is also having issues relaying college applications. Chapel Hill extended their deadline to October 21.
“Periodically, I would find myself continuously typing and suddenly my information would erase. It was too much work to send in an application,” said Rigano.
The most difficulty was found during the early evenings and mornings, but if a student wanted to stay up until midnight to finish their application, they were less likely to have as many problems versus a person submitting in the mornings.
Complaints started as early as August 1st when the non-profit organization launched it’s new application which consisted with more dynamics and integrated forms. However, it has prevented many students from applying on time.
Duke University also spoke out about the issue for their binding, early decision deadline of October 15th and stated that they will be asking for prospective students to have an interview with an admissions counselor to prevent any more issues through the internet.
During a “crunch time” that happens to be from September to Early February, students are craving to get their applications in on time. Now that internet access and dependency has grown for several years, The Common Application is a large component to most students’ lives in preparation for college. If it continues to fail the expectations of students and counselors alike, the Class of 2014 might be more stressed out about a deadline than the essay questions.
The Common App is a non-profit organization that provides students with a multitude of applications that can prevent hours of typing in the same information. This dynamic tool not only helps students but it also helps colleges by it’s methodology of sending everything in a package consisting of, but not limited to, recommendations, school reports and self-reported transcripts. However, students may depend on it too much which may lead to nightmares for all seniors.
