Going into senior year, I expected that the stress associated with standardized testing and college applications would be behind me and my last year in high school would be a breeze. Instead, I find myself confused and worrying about filling out the Common Application on time, all the while facing anxiety about everyday classes and fulfilling never-ending college application supplements and requirements.

As I was finishing my junior year, I made the resolution to finish my personal statement essay and Common App supplemental essays over the summer in order to avoid college anxiety during my senior year. However, I soon discovered one of the biggest flaws in the Common App, which is that the program is not made available to students until August 1. Personally, I believe that it is unreasonable to deprive students of the ability to finish their college application during their time off when they are not overwhelmed with schoolwork and athletic involvement. For whatever reason, the Common App seems intent on making the lives of students applying to college more difficult by delaying the launch date to a time that coincides with the beginning of school.

In addition to the late launch date, I encountered the incredibly inconvenient problem faced by the Common App of missing one of the most crucial parts to college applications: the individual college supplements. According to the official website of the Common App there are over 500 member colleges and universities, yet on August 1 a total of 0 school supplements were available for completion. In fact, as late as August 29, only 483 college supplements were live and available for student completion.

With the newest version of the Common App, known as CA4, launched this year, I also noticed difficulties students are likely to face in perfecting their applications to individual schools. Unlike in previous years, the CA4 Common App denies applicants the opportunity to submit different personal statement essays to different schools. Although the new version streamlines the process of applying, I feel that this particular restriction is detrimental for those students who want to tailor their applications depending on the type of school they are applying to in order to help them stand out.

Due to these unexpected challenges I have encountered with the Common App and the poor release timing of the applications, it appears that senior year will be the most challenging and overwhelming one yet.