There are few things as onerous in life as dealing with
bureaucracy, especially the electronic variety. But I told myself to “suck it
up, Buttercup.” And Matthew and I began to process of college applications.
When my two oldest started college, there were still paper
applications. You could write in answers and make notations. Now you click the
bubble. Unless the bubble doesn’t want to be clicked. And then, you can click
and click and click. And the bubble ignores you. So Matt clicked. And when it didn’t
work after twenty clicks, I clicked. Not that I expected it to be any
different, it’s just the disbelief factor.
And I began to wonder who designed this form. Particularly
since nowhere on the form does it say what else you need to submit to the
university. They never tell you to send in your SAT scores or your
transcripts. There are no unclickable
buttons that lead to scholarship or financial aid applications.
But finally, we reached the end of the application , leaving
the unclickables unclicked. And it was time to pay the application fee. There
was a stern warning that if you didn’t pay immediately after completing the
application, then you could no longer pay on-line and would have to drive to
the university and present them with a check. This seemed kind of odd to me,
but whatever.
I filled in my credit card information and clicked submit.
And it popped up “Page Not Found” and dumped us back on the submit payment page.
Matthew’s hand moved toward the “submit button.” I said, “No!”
I quickly checked my email. My credit card company had
emailed me, telling me that I’d paid the university application fee. So I told
Matt to just exit the application.
Then I realized the obvious. A student doing work study designed
this application. And I wondered where the second would have gone. Probably
some numbered account in a country without extradition treaties to the US.
Crazy and creepy, too! Sounds like the work-study student wasn't finished with the job.
ReplyDeleteJeez, it sounds like your experience trying to fill out the form online was almost as much fun as the folks trying to apply for their new health coverage. (I sure hope they get the kinks worked out of that pronto... it almost sounds like a work-study student could've done a better job with it.)
ReplyDelete