FAQ and Troubleshooting with Common App

Keeping your educator list in Xello up-to-date is important to ensure that students are able to select current teachers as recommenders and that they are not able to accidentally assign requests to educators that have left your school but have not yet been deactivated. View the following articles for instructions: Add an Educator Account and Deactivate an Educator Account.

When adding educators to Xello for the purpose of actioning Common App requests, you must assign them User or Administrator level access. Educators will receive an email and must register their account.

Yes. Those with Administrator access can view, complete, and send the forms on behalf of a counselor or teacher. The original requestee's name will still show as the sender. View Manage Requests on Behalf of a Counselor for more information.

Advise the student of an alternate email address for the educator. In Common App, the student must request the educator as an Other Recommender and use the email address other than the one the teacher has registered themselves into Xello with.

Students will continue to see updates on the status of their request within the Recommenders & FERPA section of Common App. As we continue to expand Common App features in Xello, we plan to include request status within students’ application checklists in Xello.

Use the College Applications reports. In your educator account, click Reports, then College Planning. In the College Applications tile, click Select Report and choose between running a report by institution or by student. Check out Run Reports on College Planning to learn more.

Alternatively, one way to review college applications for a specific student is to use the search bar at the top of any page in Xello and enter the student’s name to bring up their student profile. Click the College Planning tab to review their college applications.

From your educator account, under Features, click Dashboard Resources to upload documents for your students. What you’ve uploaded will show immediately on your students’ dashboards under their Resources & Links section – making them easily accessible as students work on their personal note in Xello. Check out Dashboard Resources to learn more.

• Clear your cache and refresh
• Log out of Xello and log back in

• The educator may not be registered in Xello
• The Teacher Evaluation may not be required for that college

• Ensure the information entered is exactly as described in the field. For example, if the background text in the field only shows digits, such as 65, do not write 65%
• Make sure any documents uploaded are PDF format

• Try zooming out on the screen

• Ensure the file attached is a PDF.
• Ensure the PDF meets the 2 MB size limit.
• Ensure the PDF is not password protected and is not corrupt.
• If the educator's email address was recently changed in Xello, resubmit the Counselor and/or Teacher profile in Xello's Common App tools.

• Ensure all required fields are filled out.
• Ensure that dates have not been manually entered, instead use the date picker/pop-up calendar.