It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The Common Application made great fanfare of what was touted as the “new and improved” application.” Completing and submitting applications was to be made easier for students, high school counselors and colleges.

Let’s just say it didn’t work out so well. Here is a sampling of some of this past week’s headlines regarding the Common Application debacle: “Halloween Tricks Come Early at Common App,” “Common App-oplexy, Redux,” “College application insanity gets worse” and “Application Armageddon.”

The Common Application, with more than 500 college members, shut down completely on Oct. 14, the day before what was to be a baby-step in handling deadlines. Georgia Tech and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are two colleges with Early Action deadlines of Oct. 15. Both colleges extended their Early Action deadlines to Oct. 21.

This first deadline should have been a confidence booster for the Common App which has had a variety of minor to major glitches since it first released the new application on Aug. 1.

Monday, Oct. 14, was an unwelcome perfect storm.

The pressure on families has been tremendous, according to Nancy Griesemer, an independent college counselor in Northern Virginia. “The Common App nightmare has produced enormous amounts of unnecessary anxiety. It is time-consuming, frustrating and complicated. Combine this with everything else going on in a high school senior’s life and it’s a great recipe for stress,” Griesemer says. “The Common Application software wasn’t ready for prime-time.”