Students panic over online college application glitches


Many high school seniors are finding it difficult to send in their college applications early this year because an online application portal called the Common Application has been plagued by glitches in its new software, ABC 7 reports. And what’s worse than a stressed out senior? How about a panicked parent?

Jonathan Chan went online to apply to several colleges through Common Application.

“It’s hectic, it’s a lot of work, I’m just glad it’s done,” Chan said.

Using only one form, students can pick their colleges from a list of more than 500 universities in the US and abroad. It’s been so popular, Common Application decided to spend millions of dollars to upgrade its system. But when students started to fill out the early applications this month there were clearly problems with the software.

“Parents have been emailing me telling me their daughter has been trying to submit and then they go to ‘my colleges,’ all their colleges that are on a list, and half of them are gone,” college placement advisor Michelle Myers said.

Myers is an independent college advisor in Walnut Creek. All of her 20 seniors have had some kind of problem. There are reports of students repeatedly being logged out or duplicated payments.

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