Glitches lead to college deadline extensions

At least 42 colleges and universities have pushed back their first application deadlines for the class entering next fall — a highly unusual reprieve as a crucial date in the admissions cycle approaches Friday.

But college-bound students are hardly rejoicing.

The reason for the extensions? Students and counselors have found technical problems with a new version of the online Common Application.

Manyhave spent hours trying to follow the final steps for filing the application because documents would not load or accounts were temporarily frozen. Officials who oversee the program say they are making progress in troubleshooting glitches that emerged after the fourth version of the Common App debuted Aug. 1.

The Common App serves 517 colleges and universities, including many of the selective schools that are the focus of high school seniors seeking early admission. For more than 175 schools, the Common App is the only way to apply.

A Washington Post analysis of data on the websites of the Common App and its members showed that as of this week, at least 42 schools had extended their deadlines.

Stanford and Emory universities pushed back to Monday. In the Ivy League, Columbia and Cornell universities and Dartmouth College extended to Nov. 8. So did Brandeis, Butler, Duke, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, Southern Methodist, Tufts and Villanova universities, among others.