<p>I submitted my Stanford application, and I see that all my em dahses (--) were turned into this: . I was in a rush to submit it and didn't catch it in the print preview. So it is something that could have been avoided, of course, but I never imagined the common app would do such a thing in the first place.</p>
<p>I'm just worried because I love to use dashes, so I have a lot of random all over my supplements. While the reader may understand having seen it before, I'm worried they may just not want to read the essays at all because of the confusion the symbols bring.</p>
<p>Do you think that Stanford will see this negatively on me (careless) and will lower my chances at all or drastically?</p>
<p>Why didn’t you just change them to – instead of the formatted long -? </p>
<p>But honestly, I think they’ll understand. It’ll probably seem weird but I wouldn’t say it would prevent you from getting in.</p>
<p>I saw it after I turned it in already 
Oh well, what’s done is done, I guess!</p>
<p>Thanks for some reassurance though! :)</p>
<p>Just make sure it wouldn’t cause that big an issue while reading; that it is still clear and readable. If you still want to change it, you could mail the Admissions Office and state the problem, it’s possible that they let you send and updated version over; I’ve heard of people doing that when an error was made in the apps sent out.</p>
<p>btw, I used a lot of em dashes in my essays too- I later just changed them into ( - )
good luck!</p>
<p>I think that’s the problem–I feel like it would be confusing to read, and won’t flow well at all. I’ll definitely ask, hopefully they say yes! Thanks!</p>