Application Form - Troubleshooting

If you have difficulties in submitting your application, please review the following:

FIRST AND FOREMOST, IF YOU KEEO SUBMITTING AND EVERY TIME IT CANNOT ATTACH THE ATTACHMENTS, THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE ATTACHMENTS - IT'S THE WORD COUNT OF YOUR APPLICATION. SEE SECTION "C" BELOW. 

A. If you hit submit, and nothing happens at all, then you are most probably using an old browser. You need to be using IE 7 or up, Firefox 3 or up, Safari 4 or up, or Google Chrome. You need to make sure that JavaScript is enabled.

B. If you hit submit, and you get an error message "Unable to Create Entry", please check for the following:

  1. Scroll down and review your numeric fields, and see if there are any error messages next to the numeric fields. You should only use digits in such fields, and no other character like "$" or ",". To input $20,000, you should enter 20000 and nothing else.
  2. Scroll down and review the required fields. If there are fields that are required (marked by a red asterisk), you should not leave them blank. In the case of attachments (uploads), if there is a required attachment field on the form but you don't have such attachment, please make a simple file that says something like "Not Available", and upload it. You cannot leave a required field blank.

C. If none of the above is the case, and you are still getting the "Unable to Create Entry" error, then the total size of your application is too big. Please notice that the total word count of your application should not exceed 1800 words. This includes all text that you are entering in the response fields (the fields on the application form, not the attachments. The word count of the attachments is not relevant). You need to make your answers shorter. In this situation, the application form will show you the error message (Unable to Create Entry), and it will retain your text in the fields, but it will not be able to re-attach the attachments. So what you will see is that all of the attachment (upload) fields will show errors. That's normal. It does not mean that something is wrong with your attachments. It's just telling you that the application text is too long, and that it could not be submitted.

You can do the following to make your answers shorter. By answers, we mean all the text that you are inputting on the form. Basically you need to cut some of your text. Once your text is short enough, the application will go through:

  • First and foremost, please try to be concise and to-the-point. Please notice that all 170+ applicants will be describing their applications within the same constraints.
  • If you have the information somewhere on a web page, in your application you can always put a link to that page, rather than repeating the text in the answer. That can save you quite a bit of space.
  • If you have an answer that is rather long, you may want to try to put parts of it in a separate document, make a PDF, and attach it as one of the three additional "supporting" documents. If you do that make sure that in the text of the application you refer to it.
  • Just to be on the safe side, double check that your attachment files are not too big. Although unlikely, files that are too large (a few megabytes) can cause problems.

If you still have problems, contact us: You can reach Nasser Manesh at nasser@parsacf.org, or 650-367-9105.

Good Luck,

PARSA CF Team