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ApplyTexas Has a Hidden Bug Blocking International Students - How I Reverse-Engineered the Website Network Calls to Solve It for My Own PhD Application

🚨 Deadline Approaching. My PhD Dreams Were in Jeopardy.

Picture this: You’re an international student with very little time left to submit your PhD application to Texas universities. Your F1 visa timeline is already tight. You need that I-20 document ASAP or your entire academic future crumbles.

Then ApplyTexas decides to throw a wrench in everything.

The Digital Nightmare Begins

After spending days crafting the perfect application, I hit submit and…

ERROR. “About You” section incomplete.

Wait, what? I’d filled every single field. Triple-checked everything. The main dashboard shows 100% completion of “Core Questions”. The form looked complete, but the system was saying otherwise.

Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 12 24 52 AM

Caption: My contact form, completely filled out but somehow “incomplete”

With my SWE background, I knew something was wrong. But I also knew I had very limited time to either fix this or watch my PhD opportunity slip away.

Plot Twist: The Hidden System Flaw

After hours of debugging (yes, I was THAT desperate, also thanks to my adrenaline rush whenever I find a bug), I discovered something that shocked me:

✅ Put in ANY US address → Application submits perfectly
❌ Use my real Bangladesh address → System breaks

The system had a critical flaw that specifically affected international students - and nobody seemed to know about it.

Going Full Detective Mode

Time for some digital forensics. I fired up Edge DevTools like I always do everytime I see a bug (force of habit, thanks work).

Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 12 32 54 AM

Caption: The smoking gun - US address sends state “AL”, Bangladesh sends “null”

THE DISCOVERY:

The backend was rejecting null state values, but the frontend only sent states for US addresses. Classic validation mismatch that nobody had tested for international users.

The Make-or-Break Decision: Hack or Give Up?

With my deadline rapidly approaching, I had two choices:

  1. Accept defeat and miss the opportunity
  2. Manually modify the API request and fix it myself

Guess which one I chose? 💻

The 30-Second Engineering Solution That Saved Everything

Here’s where my SWE skills came in clutch:

  1. Intercepted the failed network request
  2. Modified the payload: "permanentState": null → "permanentState": "Dhaka"
  3. Resent the request manually
  4. BOOM - Application status changed to complete
Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 12 38 59 AM Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 12 38 02 AM

Caption: The magic moment - Modifying the Form Submission Request Payload and getting success”

Victory Screenshot

Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 12 33 39 AM

Caption: All sections finally showing as complete - PhD dreams back on track!

The Real Problem

This bug has probably affected THOUSANDS of international students applying to Texas universities. Students who don’t have coding backgrounds just… get stuck.

How many brilliant minds never made it to Texas because of this overlooked technical issue?

// The invisible barrier
"permanentState": null  // 💀 Applications die here

For My Fellow International Students

If you’re reading this in a panic about your application deadline, here’s your technical lifeline:

The Developer Workaround:

  1. Open DevTools (F12)
  2. Submit your international address
  3. Find the failed POST request
  4. Right-click → “Edit and Resend”
  5. Change "permanentState": null to "permanentState": "YourCity"
  6. Hit Send
  7. Watch your application magically become “complete”

The Happy Ending

Update: I successfully got into my PhD program and am now working on my F1 visa process.

But I keep thinking - what if I wasn’t a software engineer? What if I’d just accepted the broken system and given up?

Dear ApplyTexas Development Team

If you’re reading this: there’s a simple fix that could help thousands of students:

// Current problematic logic
- Backend expects permanentState for ALL countries
+ Backend should allow null permanentState for non-US countries

Or alternatively:

// Frontend fix
- Only send permanentState for US addresses
+ Send permanentState for all countries (use city/region for international)

💡 Pro Tip: Always check the Network tab when forms mysteriously “fail.” That error message might be hiding a simple technical issue with an even simpler solution.

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