PhORCAS glitches

The PhORCAS reference portal is probably getting some heavy use this week and next but for the early bird reference writers, there are a few glitches you may want to be aware of.  None of this should affect your application but for the paranoid types, this may add a little bit of stress for your references.  I checked boxes and copied in free comments from Word (to lower the risk of typos, see last blog post comment) and then I got to the last page and saw a nice little button called "preview."  Yesterday, clicking on the preview button did nothing.  Today, clicking on that button resulted in the creation of a PDF which contained almost nothing on it but the student's name and some numbers.  I called PhORCAS to see if something went horribly wrong and they told me they were having trouble with the preview function which they were expecting to have fixed by the end of the week. This was good news to me but doesn't give me much peace of mind.  I'm happy that I have everything saved in Word but I'm hoping that I don't have to go back in and put information in there again. The PhORCAS representative on the phone said that everything should be submitted correctly. To those I'm writing for, I'm still 100% committed to make sure everything gets submitted befor the deadline.

The take-home-point is that if one of your references contacts you expressing frustration about the PhORCAS reference portal, you might want to tell them about this known glitch.  I'm hoping that the student's ability to preview their application is not affected, but it might be.  If you can share any wisdom regarding your own PhORCAS experiences, please comment on this post.  It will help us help your classmates!