New glitches just discovered in Common App: PERSONAL ESSAY

This new issue is likely to affect your personal essay:

If you copy a multi-paragraph essay from an MS Word document into Common App, it will look fine when you copy it into the Personal Statement text box. But when you click “Preview” at the top of that screen to review the page as a PDF (or later review the entire application as a PDF when you’re preparing to submit it), the last paragraph will be missing!

The fix: Before copying your essay into the Personal Essay text box, add a very short paragraph – consisting of only a few blank characters – after your last paragraph. This way, regardless of when Common App fixes the problem, your essay will be fine.

One other new issue:

If you include an ellipsis (…) in your essay, it will look ok when you copy it into Common App’s text box for your Personal Essay. But when you then click “Preview” at the top of that screen to review the page as a PDF, you’ll see that Common App has converted your ellipsis to a period.

The fix: Go back into edit mode for the Personal Essay and change the period back to an ellipsis.

The moral of the story – CAREFULLY REVIEW YOUR ENTIRE APPLICATION IN PDF FORMAT BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY SUBMIT TO EACH COLLEGE!