UC extends application deadline after computer glitch

University of California officials have extended the application period for undergraduate admissions after a computer slowdown kept some students from filing their online applications in time for Monday night’s deadline. The new deadline is 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

Susan Wilbur, UC’s director of undergraduate admissions, said her office is investigating the cause of the computerized malfunction that at least temporarily blocked some panicked last-minute filers from submitting applications on Sunday and Monday nights. She said she did not know how many students were affected but said that about two-thirds of applicants wait to file until a week or less before the deadline. Many others delay until the day the application is due.

Wilbur said she regretted the slowdown and said she knew it added to “the anxiety students already face” in applying to UC.

Her staff notified high school counselors and posted online notices about the extension and have answered many e-mails and phone calls from worried students and parents, she said. The problem appeared solved Tuesday evening, but she said the deadline could be extended again if something goes awry.

The extension was great news for Stephanie Duque, a Long Beach City College student who could not get the online system to accept her transfer application to seven UC campuses by Monday’s original deadline. She said she cried in frustration.

“I lost hope and felt that’s the end of it. It was very hard,” the Lynwood resident said. After she learned of the extension, she was able to file Tuesday morning and felt “so relieved and happy.”

By Tuesday evening, about 129,000 applications for freshman and transfer admission to UC had been received, compared with about 126,700 by last year’s deadline, Wilbur said. About 2,600 were submitted between 6 a.m. and about 5 p.m. Tuesday.

A similar malfunction and extension occurred five years ago, officials said. Wilbur said technicians recently performed rigorous stress tests on the system and had planned for a heavy load of applicants in the final days.

“Our preliminary analysis indicates that this was not a problem of capacity, but we have not yet found the root of the problem,” she said.

UC officials said applicants who experience technical difficulties can call the university’s application help desk at (800) 914-8820 (in California) or (925) 808-2150 (outside California), or e-mail ucpath.

larry.gordon@latimes.com