<p>Hi,
I'm working on formatting my Common App essay, which is a total of 4 paragraphs. When I tried to separate my paragraphs, the App eliminates them when I view it again. Their essay formatting tab says "You can bold, underline, and italicize your words in the text box and can include one paragraph break only. Excessive spaces and breaks will automatically be removed when you click continue." Does this mean I can only have two paragraphs in my essay? Is there some other way to designate to the readers that I am starting a new paragraph? I have really really limited characters remaining. Thank you!</p>
<p>bump. Even with just one space it doesn’t separate my paragraphs</p>
<p>Yes, this is another huge problem with the new form. The main essay is designed so you can create a maximum of two paragraphs.</p>
<p>Do you just enter twice to put the space in it? Even when I retyped my essay with two paragraphs the space between them got deleted.</p>
<p>bump
bump
bump</p>
<p>Are you not able to just indent to indicate that a new paragraph is starting?</p>
<p>Yeah, the page says I should at least be able to have one paragraph break and I can’t get it to have any. So right now my essay is just a single block of text.</p>
<p>Can’t indent either</p>
<p>I’m able to hit enter once as many times I want and get it to stay, but the paragraphs are just one after another with no indents or double-enters in between.</p>
<p>Same. I started a thread on this too. No luck.</p>
<p>The Common App people apparently decided to use applicants as their beta testers. I would suppose that the CA people are being flooded with input about all the problems with the application. Probably they will get all the problems fixed in the next month or two. I would be really surprised if the final form doesn’t let you have more than two paragraphs.</p>
<p>So long as I’m not the only one! I’ve sent in a ticket and one guy told me they’re looking into the save problem. Thank you for your help everyone.</p>
<p>This formatting issue is just crazy. I agree that CA is using their new version as a big beta test. That is clear from all the issues going on. Lucky us. So it sounds like no matter what you do as far as indenting, hitting the return, or double spacing between paragraphs, that the CA just takes what you cut and paste into the box and arbitrarily reformats it into two giant paragraphs? </p>
<p>If anyone has done print preview (another frustrating issue that you can’t preview before you are completely done with everything!), is it possible that in print preview, all the paragraphs “come back” and the Admissions people at the various colleges might actually see all the original paragraphs? (I hope I’m making sense!)</p>
<p>I just can’t imagine the colleges trying to read through these huge blocks of text, not knowing where the student was trying to delineate their thoughts through various paragraphs in a 650 word essay.</p>
<p>I was talking to a colleague who is an expert on user-interface design and a college buddy who is a senior executive in Silicon Valley, both with a kid who is applying to colleges. Both of them said that the CA4 designing team would either fail the UI 101 class or be fired from the job. </p>
<p>One of the worst software designs ever came to face the masses.</p>
<p>The common app knowledge base makes clear the formatting constraints were intentional:
What could they possibly have been thinking? It’s not just the applicants who are suffering. The poor adcoms stuck reading stacks of unformatted essays will certainly complain.</p>
<p>An update for all from the support staff at Common App:</p>
<p>“Hello ____,
Thank you for your message.
Yes, before you can print preview your application, all required questions will need to be answered. The print preview is generated in the Submission process.
A hard return is basically just hitting the enter key to get to the next line. There is confusion in our FAQ about only having one paragraph break. We are working to correct that. You can have as many paragraph breaks as you want, you just can’t hit enter 2 times in between the paragraphs because one enter will be removed when you save. So basically, you won’t see the space after hitting return one time in the text box, but it is there when you print preview.”</p>
<p>So here’s the deal I guess:
-The spaces won’t show up on the edit, but will show up on the print preview when your app is complete.
-You can have all the paragraphs you want but you can’t put any more than one line between them (not totally sure about the second half but you can definitely have more than two paragraphs)</p>
<p>Hope this helps some people, I know I was very confused.</p>
<p>^what a pain…you’ll have to toggle between print preview and the app to adjust any formatting issues. Why didn’t they just leave the essay as a doc upload?</p>
<p>I know, it’s a bit confusing. Can you still go back and edit your essay after you get to the point where you can see the print preview though? I’m not convinced my spaces are going to be right still…</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>