Whoa. Everybody take a deep breath.
Our admissions in-boxes EXPLODED with messages last night in the minutes just before and just after midnight as the procrastinators among you tried—and failed—to submit your Common Application at the blink of the deadline. Here’s what I suspect happened: you had lots of company as you raced to meet the midnight deadline and that volume gummed things up. Lots of error messages ensued as the technical issues bloomed.
To illustrate the surging application activity, consider this amazing piece of data: Tufts received (and is still uploading) 10,421 applications in the seven days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That’s almost 60 percent of our applicant pool to date!
Understandably, panic erupted at many keyboards around the world as error messages from the Common App bounced back to you. My morning inbox featured several hysterical (I’m not exaggerating) messages from would-be applicants who feared the worst: they had missed the deadline. But there’s good news to share this morning: the Common App site is still open. Now that the submission frenzy has peaked, try again and see what happens. It should go through this time. And trust me when I say that our consideration of your application will not be impacted by this technical issue. (We don’t even notice the date stamp.)
But here’s one more thing to keep in mind as you track your app status: it will take us several days to upload all the materials we just received from you, your guidance counselors and your teachers. DO NOT PANIC when you check our on-line application system (TAMS) and your status (ie, "complete" or missing credentials, which includes standardized testing) does not sync with what you expect to see. It will. As I’ve said before, sending your application materials to a college is not like sending a text. It’s a bit more involved. :)