Of the most stressful and terrifying times of a person’s life, the college application process is typically one. The prospect of a single series of events, sparked by the acceptance and attendance of the right college, to be able to shape and set course for the rest of one’s life can be frightening. Certainly in no aid to this matter, is the recent technological difficulties of the Common Application.

The Common Application, or Common App, is a 38-year-old, non-profit organization based out of Arlington, VA, created to increase the efficiency of the application process, in that a student may create one application to send to many participating schools by using this particular program. The idea, nothing short of brilliant.  From the time of its birth in 1975, when only 15 schools participated in the program, to 1998 when the organization released the first online version, to now, the program has become increasingly popular. Now, 517 universities are members of the Common App, including (prestigious universities such as) Harvard, Yale and Brown, and one third of those colleges have made the Common App their sole application.

In its history, the Common App has worked like a dream in assisting students in the treacherous college application process, but for this year’s high school seniors, it has been more or less a nightmare.

A bug in the website’s most recent software update has plagued the website, causing technological issues that range from a student’s inability to log in, to freezing and crashing. Though, these pesky problems don’t compare to the most frustrating challenges students have faced with the Common App including its rejection of essay uploading from Microsoft Word, and its failure to process payments or even force multiple payments for application submissions.

Senior Ben Spar struggled with the Common App in his early-decision applications. “The most frustrating part for me was my recommendation. My teacher was unable to submit his recommendation after he had started because the website would respond.” When asked about his own individual issues with the website he said, “the website required me to fill out a field multiple times, over and over, because it didn’t recognize that I had completed it. I was forced to delete the field, log out, and re-complete it, which was very aggravating.”

According to the Common App’s Facebook page, it has taken measures to ensure the progression towards a problem-free experience. Of these measures includes a help line staffed for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In the Hackley Community, the plague of the Common App has not been any more sparing than it has to everyone else. The glitch-ridden program has created setbacks in the application process of many Hackley seniors.

Head of the History Department at Hackley School, William Davies, tangled with similar technological problems. “In writing a recommendation for a student, the application stalled, stopped, and then insisted that I ignored a form which was never offered.” Mr. Davies’ luck played a factor in his latter success as he remarked, “I had to wait a couple of days for the website to allow me to upload the recommendation, but I had a couple of weeks, fortunately, until it was due, so I avoided what could have been a problem.”

Contrary to many, College Counselor Peter Latson had a unique opinion on the issue. Mr. Latson remarked, “Yes, there have been major glitches, but students have been able to get past them. They were all solved, none of them were fatal.” Mr. Latson said, “The glitches are frustrating, and any glitch will be nerve-wracking. But, in hindsight, they have been minor glitches, and the stress of seniors has warped it all out of proportion.”

Mr. Latson recalled similar past experiences. “Two years ago it was the snowstorm, last year it was Sandy, and this year it is the Common App. Each year it is something new.” Yet, Mr. Latson made a distinction between the issues when he said, “This year is differently challenging. We lost power in Sandy, but we knew we would get it back soon enough. With the Common App failures, there is no timetable for the resolution of the website’s issues.” Though the application process is a serious topic, Mr. Latson light-heartedly remarked, “colleges want students to apply! They need people to fill their classes, so they push back deadlines to accommodate to these setbacks.”

Many colleges have responded to the Common App’s failures by working with applying students and changing deadlines. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgia Tech extended their early-action deadlines from Oct. 15 to Oct. 21. A total of 44 other schools including Dartmouth, Duke University, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have pushed back the Nov. 1 early-decision deadline by a week.

The failures of the Common App have certainly struck fear in the college-bound seniors of Hackley, and seniors everywhere. With no clear solution in sight, students remain helpless and subject to the unpredictability of the Common App. Hopefully, the organization will manage to solve the problems of the Common App and relieve the weight of which applying seniors currently bear, so students may maintain confidence, and sanity, in their efforts to attend the college of their choice.