Op-Ed: OUACtually Kidding Me. - Julien
Having applied to 6 different universities, it’s surprising that my experiences with OUAC and each of these 6 university websites have remained the same: pitiful, distressing, and usually ending with a minute of shouting and screaming followed by hours of extended grumbling.
It’s pretty sad.
There are tiny nuisances which I probably overreact to. The University of Waterloo, for example, states that you must be active to remain logged in, but doesn’t mention that you are inactive if you’re typing in a text box, meaning you should save every couple of minutes if you want to type on-site. Queen’s University requires you to press the logout button to logout, and you receive a timeout error if that is not completed. Each portal also insists on different password requirements. Unless you luck into the strictest one, it’s likely that you would have to change your password to fit these constraints, which creates the possibility of forgetting your password on the day your application is due.
Possibly.
These issues are solvable though. They might be mildly irritating, but if you’re careful enough, you shouldn’t have a problem at all. Other server-side issues, however, are much more severe.
The University of Toronto, McGill University and McMaster University all suffered from technological issues this year, ranging from an unresponsive form submission, to a full site shutdown. Even Kira, a supplementary video application maintained by a third party, couldn’t handle the vast number of video uploads this year, and forced students to use a browser other than Chrome in an attempt to fix the issue. McMaster supplementary applications require different students to submit at different times, and doesn’t allow copy-and-paste, forcing them to retype their application onsite to reduce submission traffic. These technological errors happen every single year.
There’s no doubt that each university might struggle to handle this wave of traffic. After all, the number of applicants usually change and website maintenance isn’t required for most of the year. Plus, only a fraction of the school’s resources actually goes to fund the maintenance of a server.
My question is this: why can’t OUAC just be the host to all of these portals at once? Create a bank of all Canadian universities, allowing all questions to be hosted in one centralized area.
Since the OUAC already hosts both mark reports, as well as program selection and payment, it serves as a perfect existing foundation to build upon.
The Common Application, which is the choice application for most students applying to the United States, is a prime example of this. Since the sole purpose of the website is to host questions, the application can collect funds from each participating university, allowing for a greater pool of resources that fund the server. The interface is clean, the forms are responsive and intuitive, gathering references is easy, and it actually updates you when applications are down.
Like the Common Application, the OUAC site could employ variable questions, which could appear or disappear based on the options you’ve selected. An “Engineering” application question could very well be different from a “Art” application question, and all of this could be hosted without the need to create two separate applications with two separate web pages.
It’s beneficial to the university as well. When Columbia University joined the Common Application in 2014, the number of applications received increased from 23,000 to over 31,000 [1], and the average has floated above ever since, adding more than 8000 new applications to its prospective student pool every single year. That gives a university a greater pool to sift through, allowing them to compare more applications, and gives them a better chance to find their diamond in the rough.
By upgrading their system, and centralizing their applications, It’s a win-win scenario for the university: They will attract more students, and stop adding to the stress load of an average student.
And less stress means better applications, right?
[1] http://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/classprofile/2018
