Common App Form Errors

For Teachers who have submitted their Recommendation Form for a student and are experiencing this error message, you will need to contact the Student's Advisor and provide them with your updated PDF file. The Advisor will be able to replace the PDF file for you before sending it to the universities.

If you encounter this error, you’ll need to reduce the PDF file size to under 2MB, then try uploading and attaching the new file to the form again.

If you are trying to send documents and the status bubble turns yellow but reverts to red, it's most likely due to the wrong CEEB being entered in the student's Education section on their Common App.

Make sure the student has selected the school they are attending or recently attended. They can click Change to update the school and CEEB code if needed. Once the correct information is updated in the student’s Common App account, you should be able to continue document submissions in BridgeU.
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If you are trying to upload a PDF file and you see this error message, it is most likely due to the PDF file being password protected/encrypted.

To resolve this on MacOS, open the PDF file > Click File > Select Export as PDF. Make sure there is no password input and the Encrypted section is not ticked. Click Save, and this file should now be unencrypted. You can now try to re-upload the file without error.

If you are manually filling in a Teacher Recommendation for a student and you see this message, this means there is already an existing Teacher Recommendation pending that is using the same email address. You will need to either use a different email address, delete the existing Teacher Recommendation form, or proceed to use the form that has already been created.

If you see the error message while assigning a Teacher Recommendation letter to selected universities, it means there is already an external Teacher Recommendation on the student’s Common App dashboard.

What does the student need to do?
​1. Log into their Common App account
2. Go into their Recommenders and FERPA page
3. Click into Manage Recommenders
4. Remove all Counselor and Teacher invitations by clicking the trash bin icon.

If the student does not see the Manage Recommenders button, please scroll down to the Teachers section of the page.

This error usually appears when the student has already sent recommender invitations directly through the Common App website before pairing their account with BridgeU. In that case, there may no longer be enough recommender slots available.

To fix this, the student will need to remove the existing invitations first. With Common App’s latest update, they can do this themselves by going to the Recommenders and FERPA page and clicking the trash can icon next to the invitation.

This message usually means the recommender is already set up in Common App and therefore can’t be invited again through BridgeU.

Before the recommender can be added in BridgeU, they must first be removed from Common App.

This error is typically caused by text that exceeds Common App’s 100-character limit.

Please shorten the text to 100 characters or fewer, then try submitting it again.

If you see this error message, it is most likely because the university only accepts a limited number of teacher recommendation letters.

To resolve this, go to the Documents page, click the student’s name, and then click the university name. You’ll then be able to see how many required and optional LORs are needed.

This error can appear when the student does not have any applications in their Common App list with an ED1 deadline.

To resolve this, double-check that the correct deadlines are set. The student may need to update the college they are applying to under ED1, then sync their BridgeU and Common App accounts again.

Please note: even if ED1 appears in BridgeU, you may still need to sync again if the student recently changed their deadline choice in Common App.

If you see this error message, it is most likely because the text exceeds the allowed character limit.

To resolve this, make sure the Other Grades Taught field is 30 characters or fewer.