Common App Glitch Pushes Deadlines Back

Just days before the first major college application deadline, October 15th, students at Exeter and across the country were not able to log onto the Common Application website for a period of twelve hours.The crash is thought to have been caused by the revised Common Application and website. The following message was posted to the Common Application website on Tuesday morning:“We are aware that some users are experiencing problems with the PDF previews. We are investigating the cause and will report as soon as we have information to share. As frustrating as this problem is for those who encounter it, please know that it is not systemic and does not impact all users.”The crash coincided with an apex of stress- ful days in the run up to the first round of Early Action and Early Decision application deadlines.Senior Emily Wiklund spoke about her anxiety as the website continuously rejected her attempts to log in.“I wasn’t sure whether I was going to lose my whole common app., or if I wouldn’t be able to submit my app. on time because it takes a long time for the application to go through to the colleges,” she said.Many seniors’ panic turned into celebration and relief when they learned that many schools extended the application period past the Octo- ber 15 deadline due to the new Common App’s technical issues.The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgia Tech are among the schools that have announced new deadlines of October 21.Columbia University also extended their application deadline from November 1 to November 8, “given the challenges some applicants have experienced with the Common Application,” its website reported.“Before I found out that the deadline was being extended, I was freaking out, and it was pretty stressful,” senior Alison Lee said. “But the [new] deadline definitely helps, in that I get more time to work on my essays and edit them again. That’s one of the good things that came out of the chaos.”Senior David Gindra agreed. “The extend- ed UNC deadline gives me more time to work on the application,” he said. “I have more time to review everything and revise my essays. I was happy that I had more time to work.”Many seniors were angered and confused by the fact that such a major organization ex- perienced issues. “Now that the deadlines have all been pushed back because of the Common App just shutting down one day, I don’t know when I’m going to get a decision back,” senior Jack Bright said.However, despite their moments of frus- tration and anxiety, some seniors sympathized with The Common App’s website going down. “I understand because they’re working with the new Common App, and they are encountering new problems and trying their best to fix these problems,” Lee said. “We just got to deal with it.”Senior Alan Guo was surprised by the decision to push the deadline for November 8th.“I knew that the people on Oct 15th [that] were having issues with their submissions got extensions, but I didn’t expect mine to be ex- tended,” Guo said.“I was planning to get my apps in before November first anyway, so the extension was more of a security blanket and safety net," he said.