With college application deadlines looming, students are hectically racing to complete essays, finish resumes, get teacher recommendations, and take their final ACT or SAT. The process is daunting enough when everything goes right, but what happens when a major component of the college application process fails?

The Common App is a 35 year old nonprofit organization that provides a standardized method of applying to college, which over 515 colleges and universities accept. To kick off the 2013-2014 college admission process, The Common App released an all new and ultra-intuitive online application system on August 1 to make the process just a little less stressful. However, its release may have been premature. Countless glitches and errors from template coding to server deficiencies have plagued college bound seniors.

Millions of college applicants have not yet been able to experience the benefits of the new system as a result of these system failures.

“As the deadlines for colleges grow closer, I’ll reacquaint myself, but for now I’ve given up and am taking a break from The Common App out of pure frustration,” said senior Mary Burgess. Have these glitches threatened the credibility of The Common App?

“I’m worried about the reliability of the system. Applying to college is such an important part of senior year, so if you can’t fill out the basic information section of the application without failures, there is cause for worry,” said senior Mason Hyde.

One particularly frightening glitch in the system leads to the inability to recognize previously existing accounts.

“It took just one day after I created my account for the system to start failing me. I hate that I work so hard on college applications, as do plenty of other students, and something so basic as the system to send in college applications is broken. I’m sure they bring in a hefty sum of money for their services and it’s unacceptable that they are breaking down like this,” said senior Ben Dehghani.

The cost of college is as equally unsettling as the application process. Private school and out of state tuition, with the cost of room and board factored in, can reach nearly $60,000 a year. Application fees should not be forgotten either. The cost of applying to college, through The Common App or not, can cost an upwards of $85. Toss in the cost to send SAT and ACT scores, as well as fees for transcripts, the total can exceed $500 to apply to six schools.

“I’m surprised colleges still charge fees to applicants despite the rising cost of tuition. I think they should eliminate application fees to help encourage more people to apply to college,” said senior Jessika Moore.

Many colleges have pushed back application deadlines to help counter system failures.  Despite adversity, students are encouraged and expected to press on and navigate through the stressful waters of college applications.

As Mary Burgess said, “I may be overwhelmed on the outside because so much is happening, but I’m sure everything will turn out fine.”