<ol>
<li>No Admissions Office phone number! </li>
<li>No link to the college's forum. We've uncovered a number of these very helpful forums via google, but they're pretty well hidden on some of the official websites! What's the point? My d received an email to join a one hour online chat hosted by a school she's applying to. The email had no link to the chat and she spend the first 10 minutes trying to find it on their website. Finally found it via a post on the SDN forum!</li>
<li>No estimated notification for rolling admissions. </li>
<li>My biggest pet peeve are broken links on a college's website! It's inevitably just the link we've spent the last 1/2 hour looking for!</li>
</ol>
<p>Takes an hour to find the Admissions Office address so I know where to send the recs.</p>
<p>Our frustration this year was finding a list of majors in alphabetical order on some college websites. </p>
<p>Another pet peeve we encountered after applying is that some colleges don't have online application status updates AT ALL. Other than to call, we have to assume they have everything and they'll contact us if the need anything else, otherwise wait until an accept/decline letter in the mail.</p>
<p>Put city and state on the home page.</p>
<p>Make it really obvious where to find the fast facts. Enrollment and SAT mid range are the first things I look for.</p>
<p>Don't just put a building's name on a campus map. Tell us whether it's a residence hall, dining hall, adminstration, or the location of a specific academic department. I don't care that it's named after Bupert Worthington-Smythe! Just tell me whether my kid would sleep there or split atoms there.</p>
<p>List minors in addition to majors.</p>
<p>Without disagreeing with the above comments consider that:</p>
<ol>
<li>A university's website exists for more reasons than telling individuals how to apply to the college. It contains all kinds of information needed and used on a daily basis by current students and employees. The needs of these individuals may/do take precedent over the needs of individuals not associated with the institution.</li>
<li>There is enormous competition to get on the college's home page. Everyone wants to be on it and there is only so much space. Again, the needs of those currently associated with the college are probably more important than those of applicants.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now there is no reason that the websites shouldn't be well designed and accessible including accessible to individuals with disabilities.</p>
<p>Some online college applications are rather frustrating. USC's habit of making me list all my classes from 9-12 grade seems useless. I'm already sending a transcript from school! It could also lead to some mistake where I enter the wrong grades by accident, thereby raising the university's suspicions that I may be "lying" on my application when it was only a simple mistake.</p>
<p>I agree with TrixieAnn about wanting core requirements clearly displayed. Often they're not available at all unless one digs deeply into the course catalogue.</p>
<p>Another more minor peeve of mine is when colleges have more than one campus, there often seems to be an assumption that we know the difference between the "Chester A. Arthur Campus" and the "Golden Arches campus." I'm not talking about distinguishing between UCLA and Cal Berkeley or U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor and U. of Michigan at Flint. I mean two campuses that are in close proximity to one another--often less than a mile apart. It's helpful to know what--if anything--differentiates one from the other. For instance, can freshmen live on either campus? Is one specific to sciences or engineers? Do you apply to one campus in particular (e.g., as one does at Fordham) or are you simply plopped in the appropriate spot, if admitted? Can an applicant be considered for both campuses at the same time or only one?</p>
<p>Zip code for using a GPS and other mapping tools.
Exact address of the admissions building.
Easier ways to find faculty bios.</p>
<p>More votes here for the COLLEGE'S STREET ADDRESS ON THE HOME PAGE and also specific info on core requirements (and how they can be waived/fulfilled) under the school's "academics" page.</p>
<p>I totally agree with the finding the mailing address for some schools. Most of them make it very convenient, putting it under a "Contact Us" button, but I feel like they need to be more specific sometimes, because though it may be the school's address, it might not be the address that processes the applications. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the pdf problem I wouldn't consider a big deal because pdfs are meant to be printed out anyway.</p>
<p>The impossibility of finding school addresses is my biggest one. Of all of the schools I'm applying to, less than five had clearly stated addresses.</p>
<p>I agree with everything already posted and I also have a pet peeve regarding spelling. This is from the site of a well regarded university:</p>
<p>"No seperate scholarship application is required. The Presidential Scholarship Program is a tiered program with different award levels."</p>
<p>Yes, spelling is a sepArate peeve.</p>
<ul>
<li>Really boring fonts like Times New Roman in bright colors on a white background.</li>
<li>A ton of scrolling to do, i.e., all information on one page.</li>
<li>No pictures. </li>
<li>Clip art.</li>
<li>Cheesy graphics like rotating titles or sparkles. </li>
</ul>
<p>I'm sure your site will be nothing like that, though.</p>
<p>^ Oh, most colleges pay so much money to jazz up their websites that I'd be surprised if there was only clip art and sparkles. Too much white font on a different color background is annoying, though.</p>
<p>How about the hopelessly outdated and worse, inaccurate!!? College board listed the EA filing period as ending 11/1. The college website listed it as 12/1. Called the school to ask which was correct and was told the 11/1 date from college board was correct and that I had probably misread the info on the college website..........didn't want to argue but uhhhhh that is decidedly not true.</p>
<p>AP score and credit information. I generally go to Collegeboard for this when I can't find it easily on the colleges website.</p>
<p>Another vote for the clearly outlined mailing address! Definitely should be on the home page. I had to hunt those down for almost every school I applied to.</p>
<p>yea as everyone stated already...the MAILING ADDRESS needs to be clearly identified on the homepage... i dont know what game colleges are playing, but it seems like they assume you know which address to mail your stuff to, and then are annoyed if you send it to the wrong one....it's not our fault that the addresses are never given to us...</p>
<p>oh and to add to that...email address/phone number for contacting admissions regarding questions should also be easier to find as well.</p>
<p>Mailing address and request info links are impossible to find on a lot of sites.</p>