Correcting application errors after submission … or not

@Sally_Rubenstone Sorry to bother you again, but in a supplement essay that i wrote about my friend ‘X’, in the last paragraph, the name in the submitted version was “Y”. I’d changed the name from “Y” to ‘X’ originally as ‘Y’ was too similar to another name i had in the essay. so now my supplement essay talks about ‘Y’ for most of it, and suddenly switches to ‘X’ for the last few lines/last para. do you think I should send in an email with the correct version? thank you for your help.

@Sally_Rubenstone

Hello Sally,

I forgot to indicate my race and ethnicity on the Common App section of my application. I am afraid that not reporting that I am Chinese will come off as trying to dodge affirmative action-which was not my intention, rather it was just an honest mistake. It’s also pretty easy to tell I’m Chinese once you look into my application and where my parents were born, that I speak Mandarin, and some of my essays. Should I email colleges and tell them about my race?

@IceIceCornell -A lot of students skip the ethnicity question just because it’s optional. But if you’re uncomfortable with the fact that you didn’t answer it, it’s okay to email admission officials but maybe do it with a little humor.

@Marcelleparcelle - I’m a bit on the fence on this one, but you should probably email a hard copy of your essay to your colleges and explain very briefly that you made a small but confusing error and that you’d like them to use the updated version. Some admission officials may still end up reading the old version, but I guess it’s worth a shot to try to get the new one to them.

@Sally_Rubenstone - Hi Sally. I just noticed that I made the mistake of misspelling a professor’s name on my supplemental essay for a college. I correctly spelled it the first time I mentioned the professor but made a mistake when referring to her a second time a few sentences later. The name starts with a ‘Y’, and consists of 5 letters. When misspelling, I kept the ‘Y’ but got the remaining 4 wrong. The name is completely different even though it starts with a Y as well. I guess I just thought of another name while typing. I reviewed it so many times but never came across the typo. What do you think I should do? I already sent the application 3 days ago. Do you think that I should email the admissions office to apologize for the mistake, or it’ll only draw attention? Thanks in advance.

@dylanclive -Your situation is much like the one that @Marcelleparcelle posted about, above. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. That is, some admission officials will be mildly irked that you didn’t proofread more carefully and won’t welcome a correction, while others will appreciate the fact that you set the record straight. So there’s really no right or wrong answer here … more like a cautionary tale for those who will travel this road next year: Proofread well and then proofread again!

So my advice in cases like this is to send a brief correction only if you can do it in an upbeat or humorous way:

Example:

In my supplemental essay I discussed my excitement about taking a class from Professor Young in the Astronomy department. But then, when I mentioned her again later on, I called her Professor “Yinch.” How did THAT happen? Maybe you can chalk it up to the fact that I’d just read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to my 3-year-old cousin for the 11th time. I only caught my error AFTER I’d hit the “Submit” button, and I apologize for my carelessness. I’ll be sure to warn my little cousin to proofread more carefully, when it’s application time for him, and I promise that when I study Astronomy at ________ College, I won’t always have my head in the clouds!

@Sally_Rubenstone Hello Sally! After reading your replies to all the other users here, I want to thank you first for being so detailed and helpful! I have quite a major problem in my view and I was wondering if I should send in an amendment.

  1. Under Extracurriculars, I wrote that I was involved in an international summit for 30h over 20 weeks as I was part of the organising team. That accounts for 11 full days of the pre-summit, summit and post-summit prep, and about 2.5h of work a day. I realised now that 20h would be a more realistic estimate, so should I amend this?

  2. Also under Extracurriculars, I wrote that I had a community service project in 11th and 12th grade and that I spent 50 weeks a year on it. What I actually meant was 50 weeks in total and so it was supposed to be 25 weeks per year.

The problem is that I’ve already sent in an email to tell all the schools I applied to that the name on my Common App account doesn’t match the name on the SAT scores I sent in. Does this count as an amendment, and should I still send in an email to correct this? Would the use of some humour be appropriate here? Or just a sincere apology?

Thanks so much!

@jojobb8 -These are NOT the kind of corrections that colleges want to see (especially when you’ve already emailed about another much more major screw up.) Whether you spend 20 hours or 50 hours or 100 hours on an extracurricular activity is not ultimately going to affect your admission outcomes. Moreover, it can often be difficult to respond to the Common App’s request for hours per week or weeks per year since many extracurriculars are not pursued in a consistent manner … i.e., a student may spend an entire weekend on an activity with barely any sleep but then may not have much to do with it for a couple months thereafter. So lots of students are really just winging it when it comes to responding to those “How much time?” questions.

So my advice is to leave this alone. Perhaps you will pick up a little bad karma for inflating your hours, but if the inflation was unintentional, the bad karma will be along the lines of the dog eating your homework (just once and presumably not a 30-page research paper) rather than something more disastrous.

@Sally_Rubenstone okay hope my little oversight won’t be too costly as you said! thanks a lot sally!

Thanks a lot Sally! I have sent an email to the university and I’m hoping for the best!

@Sally_Rubenstone

Should I email admissions if on the common app I accidently reported that I had a 4.0 weighted GPA when in reality I have a 4.0 UNWEIGHTED GPA, which is significantly higher. Will this oversight affect my chances?

Thanks!!

@SNSD4ever -The admission officials should be able to figure that out quite easily from your transcript. They pay far more attention to an official transcript than they do to student-reported grades. But if you’re feeling nervous, go ahead and shoot a quick email to all the admission offices to correct the error. And if you are applying to University of California schools, then the self-reported grades are critical, so definitely send emails to UC schools if relevant.

I will send out an email to the schools right now. Thank you so much for your time! @Sally_Rubenstone

@Sally_Rubenstone Hi Sally! I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’re swamped with inquiries of every kind this time each year, but I have a quick question. During my final round of edits on my Georgetown app, I switched the order of two activities, and in doing so, somehow forgot to switch the number of years for the two. One was MUN, which I’ve done for 1 year, and the other was a community service organization, which I have participated in for 3 years. The application reads the opposite information. Is this significant enough to email the admissions rep over, or should I just let it slide?

@cornellaspirant - Just let it slide.

@Sally_Rubenstone I wrote photogenic memory instead of photographic memory. Worth correcting?

@jojo1027 … not even close!

@Sally_Rubenstone

Hi!
I am the applicant who accidently reported a 4.0 unweighted as 4.0 weighted.
Most of the schools I contacted emailed me back and told me just to add an update to my college account. However, three schools did not respond to tell me what to do. Should I call admissions office or should I just assume they’ve read/tended to the mistake? I don’t want to bother them more than I have to, but I also don’t want this oversight to affect my chances. What should I do? Am I just worrying too much?

Thank you! Your input is greatly appreciated!

I took a summer class at university of California Irvine. I thought I was signed up to get a letter grade as opposed to pass/fail, but when I went to pick up my transcript last week it said passed, instead of the A grade I earned. On my application I put down “A” when I should have put down PASSED. What should I do? Will I look really bad?

I should have added that I applied to University of California schools as well as common app schools. I sent a correction to all the UC schools I applied to. I’m mostly worried about Berkeley and UCLA rejecting me over it because they are more holistic and they may form a negative opinion of me.