wheatGrass Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I can't believe how poorly designed some of the online applications are. The worst for me has been McGill. No back button? No way to retrieve a lost password without starting the whole thing all over again? And confusing, too! The online application has unlimited-size input boxes for ' brief research summary' and briefly described career goals, etc... but they also ask for this information in the 4-5 page research summary and 1-2 page intent letter. Should I copy and paste? How brief is brief? What was your least user-friendly application? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlkwih2 Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Harvard's was so biiiig (that's what she said?) and thorough. Yale's was simple enough. I hated MIT/Cornell's because of the lack of uploading space (I like the Harvard way of putting extra pages for extra material). I also don't like Harvard/Stanford/MIT for not being able to check your app status online. Thumbs up to Yale! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gellert Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) Cornell, because you can't upload a CV and can't save as you go. Harvard, because of length and inability to status check. Vanderbilt, for aesthetic reasons. Brown, because it kept having bugs and telling me I had left required sections unfilled (hint: I hadn't, and it spontaneously resolved itself). I liked Wisconsin's and Minnesota's and Yale's, for the most part. Edited January 10, 2012 by gellert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnceAndFutureGrad Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I remember some doozies from previous seasons, but the only weird app this time 'round is Temple University. It's a two-part process where you do the majority of the fill-in parts on one program and then upload your documents to an entirely different website, with a fee for both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loimographia Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I'm officially angry with the University of Toronto. Once you've uploaded your writing sample once, they then NEVER ALLOW YOU TO EDIT IT > I accidentally uploaded a WS that's half the length of their requested sample, and realized not five minutes after I'd uploaded it. Every other program I've applied to allows you to upload and re-upload all your supporting documents until the second you submit your complete application, but noooo Toronto had to be a jerk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finknottle Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I hate the ones which notify the recommenders only after you submit the application. What's their rationale in doing that? That people might not actually submit the application and back out midway after filling the recommenders' details? Sounds highly unlikely to me. And even if that happens, what's the big loss for them? Kitkat and alicejcw 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin W. Lutz Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I can't believe how poorly designed some of the online applications are. The worst for me has been McGill. No back button? No way to retrieve a lost password without starting the whole thing all over again? And confusing, too! The online application has unlimited-size input boxes for ' brief research summary' and briefly described career goals, etc... but they also ask for this information in the 4-5 page research summary and 1-2 page intent letter. Should I copy and paste? How brief is brief? What was your least user-friendly application? I had this same problem with the McGIll application! I just provided an abstract of my statement of purpose when it asked for the "brief research summary," and subsequently freaked out when I realized I couldn't change it/had no idea what they intended for me to upload. I e-mailed the graduate coordinator asking her about it, but haven't heard back. When looking again at the app requirements on their website, the wording makes it seem like you're supposed to submit hard copies of the statement of purpose in the mail, with the rest of the required materials like the writing samples, etc. It seems ridiculous that they wouldn't accept a statement of purpose that was submitted with the rest of the required materials. At least, that's what I'm hoping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wine in coffee cups Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 One thing I've noticed is that the schools that host their own applications generally have much better interfaces than the applications hosted by Embark or ApplyYourself. I'm actually shocked at how terrible the ApplyYourself and Embark platforms have been. Even across departments and schools, application requirements don't really vary that much. It shouldn't be hard for these companies to come up with clean-looking contemporary templates that need only minor adaptations for each institution. They certainly have the scale to justify a little investment in design, yet what they provide looks like it was coded up in the 90s, uses non-intuitive navigation and structure, and doesn't even work well. Why have so many universities contracted out their application hosting to these incompetent companies? coffeeplease 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loimographia Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Got my writing sample at toronto fixed by personally contacting the department! A five minute mistake took 24 hours to resolve. NOW I've discovered that they went and sent my LOR request to the wrong professor... Toronto, I hate you so much... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edost Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 I agree that Harvard was horrible, and I wasn't crazy about Embark in general. I was pretty happy with ApplyYourself's systems (except that some of them didn't tell me when recommenders submitted letters, which was kind of irritating). I was quite frustrated with Ohio State's system. They use ApplyWeb, which also Princeton uses, but I don't remember being as frustrated with Princeton's application site. OSU's system had four slots to upload materials, and it didn't show either a preview or even a file name, so when I discovered I needed to change something on my Statement of Purpose and upload it again, I had to rely on memory to remember the statement of purpose was in Slot No. 1. Their post-submission system is also very cumbersome. You have to wait for an OSU ID, then once you have that, request an activation code, and after getting the activation code you have to fill out another form to choose a password, then wait two hours until the password kicks in. Also, for some reason, the application status website only works certain hours, and can't be accessed during other times of the day. By the way, universities wouldn't thwart our applications because we're dissing their websites, right? once 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edost Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Another irritating thing: when application forms asked me not just for the months and years of attendance, but also to specify the day. How am I supposed to remember these little details? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
once Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Cornell and BU. Cornell because the interface was terrible, you couldn't skip around to different sections and every time you logged back in you got plunked back at the beginning. Also, every time one of my recommenders submitted a letter I got an email asking me to confirm it, but the process for doing so was never really clear to me. BU because I sometimes had a hard time finding the link to the application after logging in. I also kept forgetting that technically I had a BU ID #; every time I saw that option I ignored it because I thought it was only for current BU students (hur). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheatGrass Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) For future reference for McGill applicants: I found out that those text boxes have a maximum of 2000 characters including spaces. You can tell if you look at the application summary and scroll through your text -- it just cuts off after 2000 characters. I also had to send a hard copy letter of intent and research summary, but no writing sample! Edited January 12, 2012 by wheatGrass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) UMich was so long, you can't skip forward (only back, one page at a time, for 14 total pages) and SO MANY extra essays and fill ins. Also needed a SOP and a PS, which I didn't even realize until I got to page 13....then had to write it and then go all the back back through the 12 pages to upload it the next day. I agree that Harvard's was bad too, I hated filling in "relevant courses." I don't know what they'll think is relevant as opposed to related (especially for an interdisicplinary program)! I also dislike those that require you to submit your app before they email your references. In fact that made me so unhappy that I missed the sections (buried) on the websites saying that your reccomenders can submit paper letters before that date. But oh well, it did motivate me to get my apps in sooner than they might otherwise have been. Edited January 12, 2012 by clairea12 Kitkat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prefers_pencils Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 One thing I've noticed is that the schools that host their own applications generally have much better interfaces than the applications hosted by Embark or ApplyYourself. I'm actually shocked at how terrible the ApplyYourself and Embark platforms have been. Even across departments and schools, application requirements don't really vary that much. It shouldn't be hard for these companies to come up with clean-looking contemporary templates that need only minor adaptations for each institution. They certainly have the scale to justify a little investment in design, yet what they provide looks like it was coded up in the 90s, uses non-intuitive navigation and structure, and doesn't even work well. Why have so many universities contracted out their application hosting to these incompetent companies? I couldn't agree more! I wish these programs formulated a Common App (like for undergrad) to save you the effort of typing your personal information over and over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R Deckard Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Cornell, because you can't upload a CV and can't save as you go. Harvard, because of length and inability to status check. Vanderbilt, for aesthetic reasons. Brown, because it kept having bugs and telling me I had left required sections unfilled (hint: I hadn't, and it spontaneously resolved itself). I liked Wisconsin's and Minnesota's and Yale's, for the most part. I had the same problem with Cornell. And my Brown application spontaneously forgot information I typed in, despite the fact that it was "saving" my application every five seconds. What what difficult was the file size limit of 500kb for scans of original transcripts on some applications. How am I supposed to get a 2-3 page transcript printed on security paper down to 500kb without it being blurry? R Deckard 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takethiswaltz Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 I loved UC Davis's and UC Santa Barbara's apps. the best. They flowed like honey! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coffeeplease Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) While Princeton's application had an overall nice appearance, not being able to skip between sections drove me nuts (ie, there was no way to go directly from section 1 to 7 other than clicking "next" on page 1, then 2, then 3, then 4....). And Harvard's 1 MB size limit for transcript uploads was irritating, too. But Brown's system gets my vote for most annoying. As some people pointed out, that app would save automatically at odd intervals, and then I would log in later to find that information was missing. Also, for some reason it saved my UG major as "Accounting" rather than "German Studies" -- thank god I caught that before hitting submit. Edited January 12, 2012 by coffeeplease Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitkat Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 I hate the ones which notify the recommenders only after you submit the application. What's their rationale in doing that? That people might not actually submit the application and back out midway after filling the recommenders' details? Sounds highly unlikely to me. And even if that happens, what's the big loss for them? I had one application like that, and it annoyed me to no end, especially since it was the last one due. I basically had to finish it first to make sure that my LOR's would have enough time to get in on time. All the rest I could put in the recommender's, have them sent out and take my time with the rest of the application, to make sure I did not screw up on the rest of it. UMich was so long, you can't skip forward (only back, one page at a time, for 14 total pages) and SO MANY extra essays and fill ins. Also needed a SOP and a PS, which I didn't even realize until I got to page 13....then had to write it and then go all the back back through the 12 pages to upload it the next day. I knew about the personal statement, but at the same time, their system wasn't conducive to getting it done over a several day period so that you can take your time with it, review it, not mess up. I'm with you on UMich. The one other school who's app system I didn't like so much was for RGGS at AMNH. Good program and all, but they wanted me to download pdf forms fill them out and then re-upload them. Of course, I didn't have the applications for this. On the upside they did provide this, but I wonder why they couldn't just have a system where you could upload it in whatever form you had it in in the first place. I mean, most computers will accept word format for things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athenrein Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Harvard's and Stanford's were really annoying. Harvard's was huge and intimidating and uploading documents was complicated. Stanford's didn't let me go back to previous pages to change anything, the link to the app was buried, and finding the status check & way to resend an email to a recommender was difficult (finally did find the way in, though!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now