Annoying Application Quirks

[NeuroNerd86]

For several schools I applied to I absolutely HATED the section where they give you about 5 characters worth of space to put in your publications title. Have you ever seen a publication title in life sciences shorter than 4 words? Grr.

[Beck]

My own horror story would be Texas A&M. Hands-down dumbest design in online app history. You wouldn't believe it (my friend didn't, and she saw it with her own eyes). Since I said I was an international applicant, they presented me with a grid of 18 lines, each line having a mix of text fields and drop-down menus where I was to fill in the age, starting and ending month and year, grade level, and degree received for EVERY year I had been in school, starting in grade 1, six years old. Since I had been in school for 16 years to date (shocker I know), that's 128 form fields I had to fill in, very carefully they told me, because "mistakes are costly to correct". Took an entire Sunday afternoon.

UT-Austin did the same thing to me. Unfortunately, 13 years of primary and secondary education, plus a year when I was enrolled in two different schools, plus a four year university degree, plus an extra year of Honours does not fit into 18 boxes. In the end, I cut off a year of primary school to free up a box so that I could point out that yes, I do in fact have a degree. (What are the international students with postgrad qualifications longer than mine meant to do?!).

[Deleted]

My own horror story would be Texas A&M. Hands-down dumbest design in online app history. You wouldn't believe it (my friend didn't, and she saw it with her own eyes). Since I said I was an international applicant, they presented me with a grid of 18 lines, each line having a mix of text fields and drop-down menus where I was to fill in the age, starting and ending month and year, grade level, and degree received for EVERY year I had been in school, starting in grade 1, six years old. Since I had been in school for 16 years to date (shocker I know), that's 128 form fields I had to fill in, very carefully they told me, because "mistakes are costly to correct". Took an entire Sunday afternoon.

I am going to create an account to see this! It is utterly unbelievable (and funny for those who have not had to go through this). I hope you did well in grade 2; gosh, multiplication gave me a hard time.

Second horror story: All my Embark-based apps refused to log me in in Firefox. Since my first Embark app was UMich, every Embark app after that logged me in to my completed UMich app, even if the page I logged in from was NYU or Cornell or what have you. I eventually figured out the golden rule: if it doesn't work in FF, it works in IE. A rare occasion when I was glad I had IE on my system.

I second the IE bit. Some of the Embark parts simply do not work on Chrome.

[Anita]

I am going to create an account to see this! It is utterly unbelievable (and funny for those who have not had to go through this). I hope you did well in grade 2; gosh, multiplication gave me a hard time.

Never mind 2nd grade; I almost flunked first grade Was a math prodigy, but writing not so much. Ever had these interminable writing exercises where you write a single phrase/sentence over and over, supposedly for the benefit of your handwriting? I must have had ADD back then, because I could never finish the daily quota and was always busy doodling on the margin of my notebooks instead, resulting in many low marks that led to a year-end evaluation of "good student" instead of the "excellent student" badge my parents were hoping for

Also, when you create your account, be sure to say you're international. Redundant advice it might be, but that's the key to accessing the hilarity

Also, Beck, I'm sorry to report that's exactly the kind of nightmare I had thinking back on my TAMU app (as in, "Chin up, self. If you think you have it bad, think of people who have *that* background!" )

Edited January 4, 2010 by Anita

[biochimie]

Yeah I guess it may seem kind of petty, but it does also seem silly to me that some of these websites or online apps are barely even functional. I'd like to pretend this isn't true, but honestly when culling the herd of applications to a reasonable number, I have to be honest and say this was a factor (albeit very, very small). For schools I was only marginally interested in in the first place, I'm just not going to spend hours and hours using google to get the information I need on very basic things like faculty research interests. And even with schools at the top of the list, it still leaves a sour taste.

Anyway, yeah I'm sure it's not their top priority (nor should it be), but for schools that may be trying to improve recruitment, their internet presence is certainly something worth spending a least a moment's time on. After all, it's usually our first interaction with most of them, and you never get a second chance at first impressions, or so I'm told.

[whereiscarmen]

Wanting 2 transcripts from every school you went to. Why?

Wanting a transcript from every school you went to, when your main school lists all of your grades and classes you took at the school you transferred from and the community college you attended. Why?

The online system changing from we received your transcript to we don't have the next day to we do have the next day, etc etc

When the sites don't tell you the same information...on one page it says to do this when you turn in your application, on another page it says to do something else. These schools need to update their websites!

Edited January 7, 2010 by whereiscarmen

[Anita]

Seconded about the 2-transcript thing. I feel like such a lucky bastard because I've only attended one school, and it's a school that sends out free transcripts to boot. I feel so bad for those people who went to summer school and studied abroad and transferred and so on. Especially if more than one of those schools charge for transcripts.

Another kind of hilarious quirk is how you have to enter certain information in a specific format, i.e. phone numbers have to be in (xxx) xxx-xxxx format. Missed a bracket? Do it again! Seriously, whatever happened to regular expressions?

[fuzzylogician]

Seconded about the 2-transcript thing. I feel like such a lucky bastard because I've only attended one school, and it's a school that sends out free transcripts to boot. I feel so bad for those people who went to summer school and studied abroad and transferred and so on. Especially if more than one of those schools charge for transcripts.

Another kind of hilarious quirk is how you have to enter certain information in a specific format, i.e. phone numbers have to be in (xxx) xxx-xxxx format. Missed a bracket? Do it again! Seriously, whatever happened to regular expressions?

+1 to both.

I'd forgotten how annoying the phone field was. Seriously, international numbers don't look like American ones. Most of my apps wouldn't let me add the country code (I guess they could figure that out from the country field in the address?) and then I had to add zeros before my phone number to make it 10 digits so anyone who tried calling me like that wouldn't get through. And then you have to guess if they want spaces or brackets!

[vanishingpoint]

The folklorist in me loves this thread, for giving a discursive community of disempowered subjects the opportunity to rehearse counternarratives in which we, who are in the process of being scrutinized, get to scrutinize the scrutinizers. We are the subaltern! And we know crappy coding when we see it.

[whereiscarmen]

Schools that won't send the recommendation link until after you submit your full application (personal statement included).

What if I wanted to write my personal statement at the last minute? Can't do that with these schools.

*hoping these schools send the recommendation link as soon I press submit and not a week after*

Schools that won't let you see if they have received your GRE scores, transcripts, fee, and recommendation letters online. And then get mad when you call them and ask if they have gotten your stuff.

[Anita]

Schools that won't send the recommendation link until after you submit your full application (personal statement included).

What if I wanted to write my personal statement at the last minute? Can't do that with these schools.

*hoping these schools send the recommendation link as soon I press submit and not a week after*

Schools that won't let you see if they have received your GRE scores, transcripts, fee, and recommendation letters online. And then get mad when you call them and ask if they have gotten your stuff.

Don't worry overmuch about that. Schools typically don't start reading apps until 1 month after the deadline anyhow. Seriously, the whole fuss they make with deadlines is ridiculous and borders on sadistic when they know full well they won't touch those apps for another month. But yeah, I had a couple panicking moments like that too *cough * UMass and Rochester *cough *

[All About The Bones]

I third all the international applicant crazyness Anita and Beck. Apps just dont work well if you have something non-standard.

I was a bit luckier as the only one of mine that wanted an entire history just wanted it by school period ie. primary, secondary etc. However it did want any breaks you have between school and what employment you were in. I took 3 years out before starting uni so I had to put in my rubbish jobs at Starbucks etc.

I also got mega annoyed at boxes not being big enough. On one of the apps specified how to enter English degrees: upper class second division etc. but I could not fit it in. Also there is such a range in one class but you cant put that down either because the number is a percent but not really out of a hundred, so it looks bad when its not. Grr.

I never encountered the phone number issue, if I had it may have sent me over the edge!

Also why make international students hand in an app earlier than everyone else if you are not going to look at it seperately?!

[gazelle]

The thing that irritated me to no end was how one school chose to have me enter my degrees.

For whatever reason, it made me select the type of degree from a drop-down menu. OK, fine--except the only options were Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. Too bad I have one Bachelor of Science, and one Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, a considerably different degree than a BS.

Moving on from that, what irritated me more was the major field. Instead of just letting me type in my major, chemical engineering, I again had to choose from a drop down. Well that would be great, if they didn't include every type of engineering EXCEPT chemical engineering in their choices. There was a generic "Engineering" option, so I had to take that. So I had to put that I have a "BS in Engineering", which isn't even right.

To then make this worse, there was the "primary degree" section, where I could put one major, and the "additional degree" section, where I could put the other. OK, fine, no big deal. Put the engineering (albeit incorrect) in the first one, and the chem degree in the additional degree section since far and away chemE was my primary degree. Well, well, well--after I submitted the application, it flagged me to send them two transcripts, despite getting both degrees from the same school.

So, in summary, what I wanted to do: enter "Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering" as my primary degree, and "Bachelor of Science, Chemistry" as my additional degree.

What I had to do: enter "BS, Engineering" as my primary degree, and "BS, Chemistry" as my secondary degree, which not only flagged two transcripts, but also only pulled up reflecting "chemistry" as my major in the printable application PDF when all was said and done. What a mess. Dear God I hope they take a good look at the transcript.

I have two degrees from the same school. A BS in chemistry and a BChE in chemical engineering. Why can't I just type these in, and why can't there be a field right underneath for "second major"?

[BCHistory]

The folklorist in me loves this thread, for giving a discursive community of disempowered subjects the opportunity to rehearse counternarratives in which we, who are in the process of being scrutinized, get to scrutinize the scrutinizers. We are the subaltern! And we know crappy coding when we see it.

This is amazing.

[rogue]

This is amazing.

Yes! Love it.

[NachoConnoisseur]

Yeah I guess it may seem kind of petty, but it does also seem silly to me that some of these websites or online apps are barely even functional. I'd like to pretend this isn't true, but honestly when culling the herd of applications to a reasonable number, I have to be honest and say this was a factor (albeit very, very small). For schools I was only marginally interested in in the first place, I'm just not going to spend hours and hours using google to get the information I need on very basic things like faculty research interests. And even with schools at the top of the list, it still leaves a sour taste.

Anyway, yeah I'm sure it's not their top priority (nor should it be), but for schools that may be trying to improve recruitment, their internet presence is certainly something worth spending a least a moment's time on. After all, it's usually our first interaction with most of them, and you never get a second chance at first impressions, or so I'm told.

Are you familiar with this quote? Quite fitting for this conversation!

“Everything we hear from people we interview is that today’s consumers draw no distinctions between an organization’s Web site and their traditional bricks-and-mortar presence: both must be excellent for either to be excellent.” Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet and American Life Project

http://www.pewinternet.org/Experts/Lee-Rainie.aspx

[Victorianna]

One of my applications asked that applicants fill out separate forms to apply for graduate assistantships. The information requested was already included in the primary application. To make matters worse the forms could not be filled out online, but has to be submitted online so I needed to print the forms, fill them out and then scan and upload the docs to the online application. In addition to this added nonsense the form also requested that 3 LORs in addition to the 3 LORs for the general application be submitted in support of your application for a graduate assistantship. Argh.

[javagdss]

Two of my schools have too many paper components no integration between departments. WHY do the admissions office, the department, and the scholarship/finaid office ALL need OFFICIAL copies of my transcript? Can't you share? Can't I just send two of you a copy and you can verify with the third? Are you really that distrusting of your applicants and unwilling to play nice with others?

[yivorechecho]

This wasn't really annoying, more just weird: When requesting transcripts from the local community college where I took a couple of summer classes, it asked me to put in the address where I wanted the transcript sent. A drop-down menu was provided to pick the country.

One of the countries listed was, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

I had to check a calendar.

[tskinner]

The folklorist in me loves this thread, for giving a discursive community of disempowered subjects the opportunity to rehearse counternarratives in which we, who are in the process of being scrutinized, get to scrutinize the scrutinizers. We are the subaltern! And we know crappy coding when we see it.

I LOVED this!

Except the underlined section is a little wordy and could have been written more concisely:

...in which we, the scrutinized, scrutinize scrutinizers.

[Anita]

This wasn't really annoying, more just weird: When requesting transcripts from the local community college where I took a couple of summer classes, it asked me to put in the address where I wanted the transcript sent. A drop-down menu was provided to pick the country.

One of the countries listed was, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

I had to check a calendar.

That reminds me! When I applied to Brown for undergrad 5 years ago, the country list had "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" and "Republic of South Vietnam". Uhh Brown, we're not in 1968 anymore...

[melusine]

This wasn't really annoying, more just weird: When requesting transcripts from the local community college where I took a couple of summer classes, it asked me to put in the address where I wanted the transcript sent. A drop-down menu was provided to pick the country.

One of the countries listed was, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

I had to check a calendar.

lol - that is pretty weird for an address box.. not so much for "birth place" boxes though. not many people know this but the country you were born in, is the one listed as your place of birth, regardless of its present existence. which is why i still have to list USSR as my birthplace, regardless of my being a "citizen of the Russian Federation".

[hadunc]

Ugh, I'm so glad somebody else has had that problem with degree dates! So many of my apps didn't allow for a simple "no degree awarded" option...that would have made things so much easier! I mean, it's not very rare for an undergrad student to take gen eds at a community college and then transfer to a 4 year college. In that case there would never be a degree awarded! That was very frustrating to me.

Other annoyances had to do with having to fill out information that 1) seemed completely irrelevant and 2) felt a bit like a violation of privacy. For instance, one of the schools I applied to asked me to fill out my parents names, address, phone number, highest academic degree awarded, and even when they last voted!! I couldn't believe they asked that question. What the hell does that have to do with my application? And it wasn't even an optional question, it was required for submission! I just didn't understand that at all.

Another school actually made me list my high school under previous academic institutions, including its address, phone number, and web site! I mean really, do they think that I could have managed to get a BA if I hadn't even graduated from high school? Who designs these apps anyway?

[Pamphilia]

Another school actually made me list my high school under previous academic institutions, including its address, phone number, and web site! I mean really, do they think that I could have managed to get a BA if I hadn't even graduated from high school? Who designs these apps anyway?

My best friend's dad is a surgeon who never graduated from high school or got a GED. He dropped out his sophomore year, somehow managed to talk his way into an Ivy League undergrad,* and eventually became a doctor. A couple of years ago, he decided that he wanted his high school degree, so he called up the old school and told them that he'd "lost" it. Because he already had an MD, they never bothered to double check his transcripts and just gave him his degree. But he never actually finished his high school credits.

Sorry to deviate from the topic a bit! Just thought I'd share. That story still astounds me.

* Of course, this was the early '70s. Something tells me this would NOT fly nowadays.

[coyabean]

The folklorist in me loves this thread, for giving a discursive community of disempowered subjects the opportunity to rehearse counternarratives in which we, who are in the process of being scrutinized, get to scrutinize the scrutinizers. We are the subaltern! And we know crappy coding when we see it.

T-shirt. This. On it. Please.