<p>I was looking at the Stanford website the other day and thoroughly scared myself and my daughter when I read that last year, hundreds of students who thought they submitted their applications on time did not, and thus weren't considered for admission, because of common app technical problems. Does anyone know anything about this and how big a problem this was overall? My daughter hasn't finished her application yet (she has several supplements to edit and she has school, for pete's sake), but she plans to submit on Dec. 26. Thank you.</p>
<p>Never heard of that but will definitely look into it… Scary…</p>
<p>megdog–</p>
<p>You’re conflating two separate issues. Stanford’s website says that will not honor late applications “even for students who experience technical difficulties with the Common Application Web site.” It does not say that technical difficulties caused the delay of any applications. In fact, despite urban myths to the contrary, commonapp.org has functioned normally.</p>
<p>Regarding applications not getting through, here is what Stanford says:</p>
<p>“Finally, as I shared with our Restrictive Early Action applicants, I encourage you to submit your application well in advance of our application deadline. Last year, nearly 1,000 would-be applicants to Stanford mistakenly believed they successfully submitted their applications via the Common Application Web site when, in fact, they did not. These students completed their applications online and paid their application fees but failed to actually “submit” their applications online by the deadline. As a result, we were unable to consider their applications for admission.”</p>
<p>In other words, these students missed the deadline because they never submitted the application. The payment, supplement, and application are three separate submission processes. Common App provides reminders of this in three locations: on the signature page, in an email confirmation, and in a student’s My Colleges status.</p>
<p>Thank you for the clarification. It was hard to tell from the Stanford message what had actually happened.</p>
<p>Thank you for explaining this very detail. My son thought he had submitted his application, after paying for his ED. Thank goodness an astute Admissions director warned parents to follow-up on documents forwarded to the university, with a phone call, to confirm they arrived. Since, we live in another country and internet forms are sometimes not agreeable to 6 digit postal code, I phoned. It took a week to get the answer. But in my sons haste and excitement he did not read those warnings, on the night of the deadline. They were sitting in his school counselors office and gave each other a high 5, after each submitted their required documents. Why don’t you correct this little problem. Warnings were not enough for an excited, straight A, number one in his class, IB student. This smart kid was not going to have a parent looking over his shoulder.<br>
I have to say, look at the kind of student that Stanford attracts and they also over looked your small detail. Make it more direct: pay for a school application, submit, then off to the the school. It is like paying for a product, you expect it to happen.</p>