Any advice/input for keeping the correct formatting on application questions?

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bananafish

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Dec 22, 2022
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As I was reviewing my application, I noticed that formatting for the free-response questions looks messed up. For the personal essays section each essay is all one huge paragraph (even though in the "non-review"/edit mode there are several distinct paragraphs). For the resume section instead of the information appearing as individual bullet points it's all one massive paragraph with asterisks interspersed. This makes my responses very hard to decipher. I was wondering if it will appear this way to the admissions committee? Is there a work-around for this? I remember having this problem when I applied last year but I can't remember if I found a solution or just submitted with the messed-up formatting.

I would appreciate hearing some input on this topic before I click submit. Thanks in advance!
 
bananafish said:
As I was reviewing my application, I noticed that formatting for the free-response questions looks messed up. For the personal essays section each essay is all one huge paragraph (even though in the "non-review"/edit mode there are several distinct paragraphs). For the resume section instead of the information appearing as individual bullet points it's all one massive paragraph with asterisks interspersed. This makes my responses very hard to decipher. I was wondering if it will appear this way to the admissions committee? Is there a work-around for this? I remember having this problem when I applied last year but I can't remember if I found a solution or just submitted with the messed-up formatting.

I would appreciate hearing some input on this topic before I click submit. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Hello! I'm not sure how the admissions committee will see it on their end, but I do know a workaround. I assume you tried to copy your essays over from google docs which results in the indistinct formatting. If you are able, try transferring your essays to Microsoft Word, and then from there transferring them into your application. I ran into the same problem and that worked for me, hopefully it helps and good luck throughout the admissions process!
 
majorarray said:
If you are able, try transferring your essays to Microsoft Word, and then from there transferring them into your application.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your help! That did help with keeping the bulleted lists in "edit mode", but in the review mode I still see everything clumped together in single paragraphs for the essays and the resume section. Ah well, I've tried everything I can think of. Thank you again for your response!
 
Type your response in MS Notepad (Word Pad?) and then paste it into the application text box. That should strip out any formatting that might be displayed as an asterisk.
 
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