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Chris Wysocki
Caldwell, NJ

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Monday, 14 October 2013

Big IT projects are hard: Online college application revamp crashes and burns

Are you a high school student interested in applying to college? Chances are you're going to use the Online Common Application. That is, if the folks behind it can ever get it to work.

With early admission deadlines looming for hundreds of thousands of students, the new version of the online Common Application shared by more than 500 colleges and universities has been plagued by numerous malfunctions, alarming students and parents and putting admissions offices weeks behind schedule.

"It's been a nightmare," Jason C. Locke, associate vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University. "I've been a supporter of the Common App, but in this case, they've really fallen down."

Colleges around the country have posted notices on their admissions Web sites, warning of potential problems in processing applications. Some Minnesota colleges have created an optional partial application. The Georgia Institute of Technology has one of the earliest fall application deadlines, Oct. 15, but it was not able to start reviewing applications on a large scale until last week and has postponed the deadline for some supporting paperwork until Nov. 1.

For the nonprofit company, also called the Common Application, that creates the form, it has been a summer and fall of frantic repair work, cataloged on its Web site, and frequent mea culpas.

Let me guess, it's being brought to you by the same bozos behind healthcare.gov?

Problems became evident as soon as the application was released in August, including some confusing wording that was later changed. Students who thought they had finished the application found that it was incomplete because questions had been added after its release. As changes were made, some who had started their applications early found themselves locked out of the system.

Sure sounds like the Obamacare signup process, doesn't it?

They're rolling out a complete rewrite of their online system. And it appears they didn't sufficiently beta test it. Or rather, this year's applicants are their beta testers. Sorry it sucks for you, but they'll have all the bugs worked out by next year!

I learned a long time ago that large IT projects are hard.

What's that saying? Oh yeah, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Except I think folks today do remember the past, but they believe they're smarter than those other guys.

Oops.

Posted at 09:49 by Chris Wysocki [/education] Comments | Perm Link |
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