<p>Minor mistakes are ok. If it gets to a point where the grammar mistake is repeated so many times that it seems like it is embedded into your English language or there is are a LOT of mistakes that need to be fixed, then it matters. Of course, every small mistakes does make your essay a little worse than it could be.</p>
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<p>No, still awkward. It should be “impress on”, though “show” would be much better. </p>
<p>Anyway, it’s a MUCH bigger turn-off to see kids trying to use “big” flowery SAT language to “impress”, thinking that it makes good writing - when it’s obvious they have no idea what they’re doing, and manage to come off as tryhard, lazy, and vague at the same time. 
The occasional honest grammatical mistake pales in comparison.</p>
<p>Whether a college cares or not depends on the college itself and the person or board who is reading your essay. To be on the safe side, I think it is very important to have your paper proofread.</p>
<p>Proofreading Essays and More –<a href=“http://www.goodscholar.com”>www.goodscholar.com</a></p>
<p>“do colleges rescind your application or just deny you if you have even ONE spelling or grammar mistake.”</p>
<p>They definitely do not. (Lol, I would cry if they do though. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I’m pretty sure I confused “brought” with “bought” in my essay…)</p>
<p>Yea they do. They burn your essay and march to your house and yell at you for making an honest mistake.</p>
<p>What if, in your common app essay, you consistently left punctuation outside of your quotation marks, forgot to use series commas (i.e. asdfasf and adfasdfasdf and aafasdfasf), and have a disastrous comma splice. I know my grammar! I was just a stressed out idiot and uploaded the wrong draft of my essay onto the common app just before I submitted it. Am I doomed?</p>