<p>I am extremely annoyed by the text box where you enter your essay. Is this how it will appear in print preview too? NO INDENTING? NO SPACE ALLOWED BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS???? WHAAAT? It makes my essay look really awkward because I like to use short, two-three line paras at times. Removes the effect I want to bring out.</p>
<p>Seriously, I am so annoyed that I am going to request all colleges I am applying to to consider an emailed version of my essay. Some won't agree, of course, but I've spoken to some admissions officers and they were like "okay you can do that". Defeating the point of CommonApp, then. Defeating the point of the silly word limits.</p>
<p>What about the actual spacing of the words within each sentence. When my son cut and paste his essay into the box, it looked like a jumbled mess. It put one word on a line sometimes and the word count was off even though all the words transferred over. Should he fix the spacing within each sentence? Its very frustrating since he can’t do a print preview yet so doesn’t know what it will really look like. Its quite unbelievable that Common App couldn’t do this simple transfer properly.</p>
<p>Make sure to hit the continue button, then go back and look at it. The first paste is messed up, but it is mostly fixed when you go back. I wouldn’t change spacing until you find an issue on print preview. Paste it, and move on.</p>
<p>Oh yes, that was a problem for me too, but I really don’t mind making those corrections. However, ask your son to type his essay on doc or whatever using the “Helvetica Neue” font. It’s the CommonApp ‘standard’ font and will be seamlessly accepted by the text box (albeit indents and paragraph spacing will disappear). </p>
<p>And I just finished my CommonApp and all and looked at the print preview. It looks awfully convenient for the colleges (looks MUCH neater than the previous forms) so I’m beginning to wonder, with all these interface problems, whether these changes were introduced to ease the process for applicants or for the colleges. They may say ‘both’ but it doesn’t seem so to me.</p>