Technological glitches are always frustrating, but some technological glitches cause coast-to-coast headaches.
Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.
Technological glitches are always frustrating, but some technological glitches cause coast-to-coast headaches.
As The New York Times reported over the weekend, continuing problems with the new version of the Common Application have frustrated applicants and admissions officers alike. Students are finding that their essays are garbled, unformatted messes, and their payment confirmations aren’t showing up on time. Some colleges, still unable to process the applications they’ve received, have pushed back their deadlines. “It’s been a nightmare,” one enrollment official said.
As I first reported in August, the debut of the revamped online application hasn’t gone smoothly. Weeks after the new version went live, on August 1, some member institutions’ supplements still weren’t available, meaning students couldn’t submit applications to those colleges. In September frustration with the Common Application was the talk of the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference.
In my 12-plus years of reporting on higher education, I’ve rarely overheard scorn as thunderous as that directed at the Common Application over the last two months. It’s understandable, to say the least. When a crucial cog in the admissions process breaks down, those who depend on it are going to complain.
Yet the Common Application didn’t become that crucial cog on its own. Colleges—more than 500 of them—helped turn a once-obscure footnote into the most powerful middleman in college admissions. Why?
While reading the Times article this past weekend, I was reminded of a thoughtful observation about this saga. In response to my September 19 blog post, a Chronicle reader posted the following comment, which I quote here in part: “The colleges knew they were turning over the application process to the Common Application, and they know (or should know) that comes with losing control of the processing of applications. The colleges wanted to save money and boost applications by using such an easier interface for students, but they got caught hoping for too much without ensuring that the product was as promised. The Common Application erred, of course, in promising what it obviously couldn’t deliver on time, but the colleges need to take responsibility for their own choice, too.”
I pass along those two cents in the name of context. And here are two more cents, from the head of a nonprofit organization that helps low-income and first-generation students in the Washington, D.C., area prepare for college. The formatting glitches and other problems, she wrote in a recent e-mail, will disproportionately affect disadvantaged applicants: “I have no clue how students, especially those with no adults to help them, will get this done.”
The author, an insightful observer of the admissions realm, boils down her view of the Common Application like this: “They’ve got a virtual monopoly. The student users have few options.”
