Best and worst applications....

[Adenine_Monarch]

To lighten the mood a bit, I was curious about which apps you guys thought were the most user friendly and had the best interfaces and/or which were the most annoying and least intuitive....

 

For me, I have to say that OHSU, Stanford, UC Davis and City of Hope were all difficult or annoying in their various ways, while Scripps, Irvine and Caltech were probably the easiest and most straightforward.

 

For example, I liked the Irvine interface and found it easy to use and navigate in while the OHSU app had fields you HAD to put something in, whether relevant or not, and other fields that just seemed to make no sense. I did not like how you had to report all of your science courses basically by hand. This was the case with City of Hope as well.

 

Any comments?

[ss2player]

Good topic! Some of mine from last year and this cycle.

 

Worst: UC Denver (can't upload any transcripts? Is this the stone age?), UT Houston/UPenn (embark is awful), Jefferson (enter ALL courses manually, what a waste of time), UIC (confusing and clunky), BU (same)

 

Best: UCSD/Sloan Kettering/UChicago/UIowa/Arizona...all well designed and trouble free. I get excited over good web design.

[elanorci]

There was one app - I think it was Princeton, but I can't remember - where you couldn't freely navigate throughout the many pages. If I wanted to go to the 9th page of the application, I had to manually click through pages 1 - 8. SO ANNOYING. 

 

Also, seconding Stanford. Very annoying as well. 

[Orims]

Worst: Stanford hands down. Why do I have to complete 9 pages beforehand so I can start filling my letter of recommendation information?! Pointless!

Best: Baylor College of Medicine (called them and they were wonderful!), Rockefeller (easiest application ever, only 1 essay and not many filler questions).

[sys88]

UC Denver hands-down the worst. OHSU is a close second. I thought that UNC and UW's interface were pretty user-friendly.

[ion_exchanger]

Sloan Kettering's app was my favorite.

Any school that used apply yourself was my least favorite. They all varied slightly in some way and I was always paranoid that I was missing something.

University of Maryland at college park required you to apply to first the grad school then the grad program. That was a little extra.

[Raerosk]

Worst: UC Boulder - Ruled out the app completely when they said I needed to fill out a paper form and fax it in to supplement what I put online.

Yale's website was difficult to actually find the application link, although the application wasn't hard. Just couldn't find the Apply here section.

 

Best: Scripps was pretty easy, I agree there. They're pretty awesome all together.

[medullate]

I second the Boulder app being difficult. I hate to say that because that program is my top choice. I was travelling for the holidays and had to find away to scan and upload  the paper part of the app. Additionally one of my documents did not upload because you had to have ALL the documents uploaded at once, couldn't save and then go back. So I had to email the missing document to the graduate department. How embarrassing

[obaka]

Stanford's app was so frustrating I decided not to apply (and the idea of living in silicon valley for six years makes me want to puke). I literally could not find a due date for UCLA's neuro app and their website was so hideous I crossed them off my list.

[Adenine_Monarch]

Worst: Stanford hands down. Why do I have to complete 9 pages beforehand so I can start filling my letter of recommendation information?! Pointless!

Best: Baylor College of Medicine (called them and they were wonderful!), Rockefeller (easiest application ever, only 1 essay and not many filler questions).

Haha, Stanford is getting a lot of votes, it seems. I definitely hated that you couldn't navigate to whichever page you wanted...seriously? And you needed the mini personal statement AND the blurb about home program....in addition to the typical stuff.

Baylor was alright...my only problem was that they were unable to receive one of my LORs for some reason...it had to be emailed in eventually but the girl was friendly and on the ball about it.

 

 

Worst: UC Boulder - Ruled out the app completely when they said I needed to fill out a paper form and fax it in to supplement what I put online.

Yale's website was difficult to actually find the application link, although the application wasn't hard. Just couldn't find the Apply here section.

 

Best: Scripps was pretty easy, I agree there. They're pretty awesome all together.

OHSU was like that, too. The website looks great on the surface, but it's a little hard to navigate. I also couldn't find the application link right away.

 

Re. Scripps, the admin there were totally nice and helpful. One of my docs wasn't showing up for some reason, so I contacted them about it and the lady took care of it right away.

 

 

Any school that used apply yourself was my least favorite. They all varied slightly in some way and I was always paranoid that I was missing something.

I felt that way, too!

[0908]

Worst:Brown was annoying as hell. I couldn't navigate to any page i wanted to. Why have a 13 page application if you are going to do that?

 

Best: University of Arizona-ABBS so easy to navigate and the application was all on one page.

[spaceimmunology]

Stanford was the worst with being unable to navigate to any page. Almost didn't apply because of that. Turns out can't even make the interview. Should have saved myself the trouble.

[suurkate]

Worst: UC Boulder - Ruled out the app completely when they said I needed to fill out a paper form and fax it in to supplement what I put online.

I applied to CU Boulder Biochem - there was a supplemental Biochem form, but I completed it on my computer and uploaded it with the application. I never printed and faxed anything, and they confirmed my application was complete.

Edited January 13, 2014 by suurkate

[Fun_Cookie]

Stanford worst.

 

UCSF best. Very clean!

[mbiochem]

Worst: UC Boulder - Ruled out the app completely when they said I needed to fill out a paper form and fax it in to supplement what I put online.

Yale's website was difficult to actually find the application link, although the application wasn't hard. Just couldn't find the Apply here section.

 

Best: Scripps was pretty easy, I agree there. They're pretty awesome all together.

 

Ditto on the the Yale application! I just kept following links for a while until I realized I was going in circles. And there were a lot of dead links. But the application itself wasn't too bad.

[astondb4gtz]

Agreed on Stanford being the worst.

 

Still, to be fair, they may find it hard to find competent web designers in that area.

[tuckbro]

Virginia Tech/Wake Forest joint BME - I had to do it twice as they changed application companies mid stream. Then they didn't have a GRE number so had to PDF and email my score printout to a certain person.

[Chimeric Phoenix]

Stanford was terrible as was Indiana University. Both had a bunch of essays and other things. WashU was pretty good and no application fee is always a good thing.  JHU was pretty short and sweet as well.

[Adenine_Monarch]

lol. for some reason it amuses me that Stanford is getting so many votes. you would think that one of the top universities in the country would have their act together with everything....!

[astaroth27]

I hated the UMich application the most. Too many damn essays. UT Southwestern and Baylor had kind of ugly sites but they were easy to navigate and FREE!

[Monochrome Spring]

Worst: Stanford was difficult to navigate and I had to fill out all of the forms before I could request LoRs. University of Maryland College Park required me to pay before I could request LoRs.

 

Best: University of California Berkeley was very straightforward and clean. University of Pittsburgh was very similar.

[pcsteak]

Best: Washington University DBBS had a really seamless application, I also liked UT Southwestern's. The applyweb applications (like UNC) were okay, but not great.

 

Worst:  University of Michigan, although it went through applyweb, it was super difficult to navigate between certain sections of the app; you had to move through each section before you could get to the one you wanted. I also disliked the University of Maryland's application simply because you were required to pay before you could fill anything out, and it had a separate (confusing) supplemental app for the desired department.

[Adenine_Monarch]

Worst: Stanford was difficult to navigate and I had to fill out all of the forms before I could request LoRs. University of Maryland College Park required me to pay before I could request LoRs.

 

Best: University of California Berkeley was very straightforward and clean. University of Pittsburgh was very similar.

Ah, that reminds me. UTSW was that way, too. I had to submit the app BEFORE they would even contact LORs - where's the sense in that?? Why can't they be done at the same time? It just makes it so that everyone has less time to work with.

[somanyphage]

I didn't mind Stanford's actually - I liked all of the "mini essays," I felt that it gave me more of an opportunity to speak more about myself and try to find a way to stand out.