<p>My son has had major problems getting the "Additional Info" page to format correctly on the Online Common App. His GC recommended that he do an "Extra-Curriculars Resume" so that he could explain and highlight his involvement with a couple of his EC's. His "resume" is in a bullet-point format, easy to read, and one page long. Our plan was that in the EC section of the Online Common App, in the teeny-tiny space where he is supposed to list any positions or accomplishments, he would write "See Additional Info." Unfortunately, on the Additional Info page, no amount of editing in Notepad seems to make the Common App understand a bullet-point format. There are spaces between sections that should NOT be there and will not go away, making the layout hard to follow. </p>
<p>(I should mention that it took him over an hour to get his 513 word essay to format with only one error - two blank lines between the first and second paragraphs, instead of one blank line). </p>
<p>At this point we are ready to eat the $120 that we would save by applying online to the 2 schools that waive their fees for online applicants. We're just going to print the Common App, attach the essay and EC Resume, and mail it. </p>
<p>Any suggestions? Anyone else ready to strangle Common App and Adobe?</p>
<p>I cannot remember where I got the advice, but it worked when I followed it while helping my daughter format her activities ist:
Copy and paste into notebook, wherever you have too much space, backspace to remove all extra spaces between sections(that is, leave no space between those words!), then hit enter.
When you are done, cut and paste back into the common app. You'll need to print that page to see if you resolved all problems. I found some in the printing which I didn't notice in the app.</p>
<p>The common app won't accept the bullet formats (been there, done that). What my D did was fill in the info without the bullets and submitted the apps on line.</p>
<p>She was given her letters of recommendation back to be mailed out - she put them in sealed #10 envelopes, wrote a cover letter, included the nice looking resume and mailed it all off in a large envelope.</p>
<p>Thanks mominva. He tried that, but I think he was making the changes in Word (using Plain Text), then pasting into Notepad, then pasting into the Common App. It didn't help.</p>
<p>We could try removing all spaces then hitting enter in Notepad itself, but wouldn't we lose all the indents that way? The indents are almost as important to clarifying the grouping of the items as the spaces between items are.</p>
<p>I think we lost the indents, used numbers (which helped me find the next 'bullet') and put a single space in before section titles. and yes the changes are made in Notepad.</p>
<p>My son was able to use a bullet format in the Additional Information section. He pasted it in directly from Word but it showed up with extra spaces after the bullets. All he had to do was insert the cursor to the right of the bullet and backspace until the text was where he wanted it. It's not EXACTLY like it was in Word, but it's aligned properly and the bullets are there. It did take a bit of tweaking, but all the tweaking was done on the Common App itself, AFTER it was pasted.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone! Just finished getting the Additional Info page to look perfect. It involved the delete/enter fix in Notepad, and making additional changes in the Common App itself. </p>
<p>Thank you CCer's - you just saved me $120 !!!!</p>