<p>I just tried to access my Version 1 Common App (where I have to submit 2 supplements), and when I select it I get a blank screen that says service unavailable. ***???!?!?!?!?!?!?!</p>
<p>^ Just calm down and refresh the page. It’l come back, trust me I had that problem all the time</p>
<p>I had a problem and solution with submitting essays. </p>
<p>Problem: Essays saved in rtf format wouldn’t submit, even though common app theoretically accepts rtf. I don’t have Word, and .docs have caused so many headaches I wasn’t even going to try.
Solution: Save the essay as a pdf. Pdfs are really universal, and generally show up the same everywhere. </p>
<p>I don’t know if this has already been posted, but it’s useful to know that pdfs are less error prone than other formats. (you may need to look up how to get them into that format though, and you cannot edit the pdf. So you have to complete the essay then convert it to a pdf).</p>
<p>bump cuz it answered my question and I feel bad for making an entire thread about it.</p>
<p>Quick Question
Can we pay before submitting either the common app or supplement to a college? I want the payment out of the way so I can just refine my last supplement without bothering the parents</p>
<p>Yes you can pay early.</p>
<p>confused92, only for some schools. if i remember correctly, harvard and princeton wouldn’t let me pay early unless i submitted the supplement first</p>
<p>What about people who checked for a fee waiver option? My counsellor just sent me the fee waivers today in the mail, and I’m about to sent them out right now. I’ve already submitted my applications and supplements, but will they not accept my application if they haven’t received my fee waiver requests yet?</p>
<p>@woeiseponine: By the time they’re reviewing your application, the fee waiver should be there. You should be fine. Remember, they want to consider your application.</p>
<p>@DKB, celesul, and others: Big kudos to you for sticking around and helping people in the forum. :)</p>
<p>Hi I hope someone is here to answer this… (preferable geek_mom LOL).</p>
<p>Basically I am panicking and want to know more about submitting alternate applications. As I think I am right in saying that Yale allows up until 4th Jan for electronic submission and so want to re-submit (mainly for the purpose of my supplement essay which was ALL wrong).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do colleges get the new and old versions if you re-submit?</p></li>
<li><p>How do you actually do this as I cannot find any instructions despite following your previous link?</p></li>
<li><p>Does anyone know if it is actually ok to send as late as 4th Jan to Yale?></p></li>
</ol>
<p>THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!</p>
<p>Hello, hopeful. If you have already submitted your application to Yale, afaik commonapp.org won’t allow you to submit it again even if you create an alternate version. Your best bet is to send your supplementary essay to the Yale admissions office by fax or postal mail (not email – it gets buried too easily), explain that you submitted the wrong essay (e.g., a rough draft or whatever), and ask them to replace the essay in your application with the one you’re submitting. Your explanation should be polite, businesslike, slightly apologetic, and brief. Might they glance at your old essay anyway – maybe, because curiosity is a driving force. 
But they’re most likely to accept your substitute essay and spend the bulk of their review time on that.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the help geek_mom :)</p>
<p>I also wanted to ask you about problems people seem to be having/have had with the print preview on CommonApp :-</p>
<p>My additional info section is almost completely cut off by the signature section directly beneath it… but it was definitely all included and within the character limit (just 2 characters under haha). The help team said to send the complete version to colleges myself but will they be able to see it anyway?? I don’t want to send something in again and hassle them if they have already got it!! I would definitely become very annoyed ;)</p>
<p>And finally, do you happen to know of anyone who has sent in a revised version of a supplement essay by any chance? Sorry to take up your time - you seem to be helping/calming a lot of frantic applicants! I mean I don’t want to send in a revised version only for them to read the awful one instead and hate me for all the bother etc etc.</p>
<p>Thank you. x</p>
<p>hopeful – Regarding the print preview, here’s what the Common App Support Center’s FAQ has to say:
I can share a little background on this, because I’ve written a similar Web application in the past. When adding text to a PDF “template,” there’s a fixed amount of physical space available on the page. Most fonts people like to use are variable-width (notice how an o is fatter than an i), and of course words vary considerably in length. So two 150-character responses (or, even more so, two 500-word responses) may take up very different amounts of physical space. That’s why your 500-word response (for example) may get cut off partway when you look at it in the quick-preview PDF.</p>
<p>But the colleges don’t get a “quick-preview PDF” when they download your application; they get your responses as you entered them, in a different format. So they will see each response in its entirety, as the text appears in the forms you fill out.</p>
<p>I hope this explains what’s going on without being toooo geeky.</p>
<p>As to your other question, about the essay: It’s not unheard of for students to send updates or corrections. If the version you want to send has only minor differences (e.g., typo corrections), it’s probably not worth it. But if the version you want to send is significantly different from the version you submitted, just send it on in with a brief explanation that you attached the wrong file. They’re not going to “hate” you. If the first version indicated that some other college is your first choice, well, that’s an obstacle. 
Otherwise – remember, they want to review your application, and they want to see you at your best. They’re not evil nasty terrible harpies looking for any excuse to tell you NO. They’re human beings who know that they’re dealing with other human beings in a particularly stressful and excited situation. If you handle your mistake in a polite and businesslike manner, that in itself will speak well of you – even if the college in question has some strange policy of refusing to accept any updates or corrections.</p>
<p>Now… your target college is Yale, isn’t it? I’d really like you to go read [this</a> thread](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do.html]this”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do.html) to get an idea of what kind of mistake Yale’s Admissions Office has chosen to overlook in a past application. You must read it all the way to the end. And it’s probably wise to visit the restroom before you start… Trust me on this. ;)</p>
<p>Hehe that really is very funny! That would have been awful if the applicant hadn’t got in and would then never if known if what she had written played a large part in that decision.</p>
<p>Thank you for so much reassurance 
I am going to fax through my correct essay tomorrow and hope for the best, after all that’s all I can do. As for what their policy may be on accepting corrections, I believe it is still better for me to send it through than not to do anything at all.</p>
<p>– Just one final question, I completely trust what you said from experience about how colleges see your application but is it worth me forwarding my full ‘additional info’ section with the essay just in case? I know that it may risk a little annoyance but I used the entire section explaining how I will be spending my GAP year and so with a lot of it missing (it cuts off at the end of the second paragraph and therefore appears to be unaffected and simply short in print preview) they will miss a lot of important information 
Sorry I am just a worrier and really don’t want this to bug me for 3 whole months!!</p>
<p>P.S. Will a correction so late and after the deadline seem bad??</p>
<p>Thanks, GeekMom, just two corrections:</p>
<p>A) your #6 is no longer true this year. EDII and EAII are both supported in the Common App Online system this year, your workaround is no longer needed.</p>
<p>B) your #3 is only partially correct. First, the deadline is local to a college. So if you live on the East Coast, you have until 11:59:50pm on Jan1 to apply to a Jan 1 college on the East Coast, but you have until 2:59:59 am on Jan 2 to apply to a Jan 1 college on the West Coast. Second, every college gets to decide whether they will accept late applications after their deadline. Just because the online application went through after the deadline doesn’t mean the college is obligated to download and process it if it was late. That said, to our knowledge, all do accept late online applications for a period of time EXCEPT for Stanford, which is firm about its deadlines.</p>
<p>Just so you can update your list when you post it again next year - thanks!</p>
<p>commonappguy, don’t you mean that all schools do accept late online applications for a period of time INCLUDING Stanford, which is absolutely not firm about its deadlines?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/842042-i-dont-believe-deadline-extended.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/842042-i-dont-believe-deadline-extended.html</a></p>
<p>ridiculous…</p>
<p>commonappguy – Glad to see you here! Many thanks for the corrections. I probably will, in fact, update the FAQ list and post it next year. But it’s great to see that commonapp.org has a presence on CC!</p>
<p>@IBScrewed: What commonappguy probably meant is that, unlike most colleges, Stanford has no silent grace period built into its deadline on commonapp.org. The Web site deadline (we mean what we said), as opposed to the institutional deadline (well, on second thought, we’d like to see a few more applications).</p>
<p>Thank you so much for number 15. I was getting worried.</p>
<p>geek_mom, where’d you get your information for the answer to number three? I looked everywhere, and couldn’t find it.</p>
<p>I accidentily forgot to hit “send” on my NYU app, after trying to and realizing that I had to pay first. I went to pay, and forgot to go back and send it again. I didn’t realize this until three hours later. Common app still accepted them, but the date it says it was submitted is a day after the deadline. Will the college know I sent it in during the grace period, or will it simply think I sent it in on the last day?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>