<p>I was up last night carefully editing my common app essay just before the deadline to my first choice school. It was perfect - not a grammar or spelling mistake in sight, but I noticed one paragraph didn't quite end the way I wanted it to. I changed it round a little bit.</p>
<p>I submitted it last night. Tonight, I've noticed that when I changed it round, I didn't change one of the words to make it all make sense. I now have a sentence which reads:</p>
<p>"The school would urge its students to avoid loitering in the store or forming large groups and possible obstructing other customers."</p>
<p>This is the only mistake in the entire essay - believe me, I've triple-checked the completed, unchangeable draft which has now been uploaded and sent off on the Common Application. What do I do? Leave it? Send e-mails grovelling for forgiveness? Seriously, I'm not going to sleep until it's sorted. How badly will this hurt me?</p>
<p>it’s fine i promise.
there’s nothing you can do about it so don’t waste your time! i would definitely NOT send an email if you forgot to type in your birthday or your middle name you could send an email but not a mistake in the essay.</p>
<p>it’s going to be fine! other people will make even greater mistakes. where did you apply?</p>
<p>I’m applying as an international student to Brown, Tufts, Georgetown and GWU. I know they’re all great universities with low-ish acceptance rates, but I figure if I’m not going to go to one of the greats, I may as well not go through the trouble of moving and just stay here.</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m a British student, so I can’t blame my mistake on not speaking English or something.</p>
<p>Don’t stress. I submitted my common app essay with a spelling error (somehow, after hours of careful review I missed the ‘c’ in ‘cancer’!) and did fine. What’s important is the overall quality of your essay and how well you addressed the question. If it really comes down to “possible” instead of “possibly”…well, then your essay probably wasn’t that good in the first place.</p>
<p>Im pretty sure its fine. Im also an internatonal student and I realized that I had a fragment and a spelling error which completely changed what I wanted to say. I messed up Ethnic and Ethic. ugh
Im sure your fine if everything else of yours is fine! Seriously, they dont spend like 10 minute reading it so they might even miss it best of luck</p>
<p>Echoing the comments of others, it’s not a big problem at all. Combing through my common app and supplement essays i had numerous comma problems and a few grammar errors but i was still admitted to my first choice.</p>
best of luck</p>