@QuestioningAll -It sounds like you didn’t present your internship in the most ideal way but it also seems like this is not an egregious mistake. It’s something you should NOT correct in your Harvard application and you shouldn’t worry that your chances will be hurt by it. The admission folks have learned the type of efforts you’ve made on behalf of this organization and, presumably, the amount of time that you’ve put in, and that’s really all that matters. If an admission official wants to know more, it’s easy to Google the group’s name.
However, because it sounds like you’ve made a significant commitment to this internship, you may want to use the Additional Information section to discuss your involvement–and the organization’s mission–in greater detail for your future applications.
From the way you asked your question, I am assuming you applied Early Action to Harvard. If that’s the case, you should definitely leave this alone at this very late date. If, on the other hand, you applied Regular Decision and simply submitted your application very early, then it would be okay to send Harvard an Update letter about all your achievements at some point in February. And, when you do so, you can explain more about your internship. Similarly, if you did apply EA and are deferred, you can send an Update letter in February and include this information.
I submitted my LLM application to two schools last week. I just realized I have 2 typos in my Resume, the first one is that I didn’t delete an extra word from a sentence “on in its day-to-day local operations”, i should have deleted the word “in”. The second one is that I missed an “s” at the end of a possessive apostrophe, I wrote "Commission’ ". What do you recommend me to do? Best Regards and thank you
@Abe1989 -I recommend doing nothing. It would look much worse for you to write in to correct such minor errors than it would to simply leave them alone. There’s even a good chance that your minor mistakes will go unnoticed, so don’t worry about them.
Dear Sally,
On my common app self report, My total gpa is 3.8 but I accidentally press 2.8 without realizing it. After I submit all my college application in, I start to realize the mistake and start to change it to 3.8. What do i do now?
@Bab3Doll -Unless you’re applying to one of the big public universities that doesn’t require an official transcript until the spring, then the college folks will use your transcript and not your self-reported GPA when making your decision. So it’s not the end of the world if you do nothing.
BUT … because this is a fairly egregious screw-up (i.e., you put down 2.8 for an actual 3.8 GPA; it’s not like you wrote 3.7 or 3.9), I think it’s worthwhile to email your colleges to set the record straight. If humor comes at all naturally to you, you might consider presenting this correction in a light-hearted way … e.g., something along the lines of this:
“My parents always tell me that I’m smarter than I think I am, and now I realize they may be right. I accidentally put down 2.8 as my GPA on my Common App, when it’s really a 3.8. I don’t know if that indeed makes me smarter than I think I am … or stupider … but I just wanted to set the record straight and I apologize for taking your time to amend it.”
Hi Sally
My D in the recent UC submission committed an oversight in EC . There was an orchestra activity which she participated only 9th grade but in the Application clicked on all 9th 10th and 11th grade. Is there a way I can request UC admissions for correction?
Thanks much!
@Shamoo -Ordinarily I’d say to let this go … it won’t change any admission outcomes … BUT you said that this was a UC application, and UC does sometimes spot-check student applications for accuracy. So, in the unlikely event that a UC staff member were to follow up on your daughter’s claim to have participated in this activity for three years instead of one, it MIGHT cast aspersion on her entire application … and on her character!
Thanks so much Sally! Actually we were thinking of doing exactly what you suggested, just wanted to validate it with an expert. Spot check horrified us. UC does not allow online updates to the activities section. I will have to call the admission office to figure out the best way to send amendments.
@Shamoo -Sorry I couldn’t have save you the trouble of trying the online update. The easiest fix might just be the emails to each campus. Your daughter just needs to be “on the record” as having made an effort to amend her small mistake in case there’s a spot check later on this (which I can almost guarantee there WON’T be, but you still want to err on the side of caution!). Good luck to her.
I just realized I entered my ACT writing scores incorrectly, as the format depends on the date. I entered the combined ELA score from the official score report, but I should have entered just the writing score only because I tested after September 2015. Should I contact the schools about this…my combined score is higher than the writing score and I don’t want the colleges to think I was being dishonest.
@ga1982 - Assuming you sent official score reports from the ACT, it’s not imperative that you email a correction. But it won’t hurt either, so you might as well do it unless you’re already at the end of your rope with to-do list items.
I made the same error on my Harvard SCEA app as @ga1982. The CA asked for ELA/Writing scores, so I just entered the ELA, not thinking that there was any difference if my score report was going to be sent to them. Given decisions are coming out in two days, should I email a correction? Will this have affected my chances in any way?
Also, since submitting my Common App, I started two new activities: a YouTube channel that produces educational videos and an internship at a local Astronomy lab. Should I include these with my Common App and let Harvard know (if not for SCEA, but for deferment)?
Hi Sally,
I have found about 4 errors on my Common App, but none in my essays. Spellcheck would really be useful on the Common App. I guess I never went back to proofread because I completed it in August, but did not submit my apps until recently. I still have a month until my deadline, and I feel like my errors show my carelessness, although they are not very blatant (responsibilty instead of responsibility). Would it be worth calling and asking to resubmit my new, corrected application?
@pocrocodro -No, that small error would definitely not have affected your chances at Harvard … or anywhere else. And it’s definitely too late to send any sort of correction or update to an Early Action school. But if you’re deferred by Harvard, you can add your new activities to your Common App for your other colleges and also include them in an Update Letter to Harvard in January or February.
Hi Sally,
I submitted my app about a month ago and noticed few errors today. After writing my essays on another software, I copy pasted them but it turned out that all my apostrophes have turned into question marks. For example, my app shows students? when I meant students’. Thankfully I only used three apostrophes in total in my app and although I noticed the change in the last one and fixed it, there are still two question marks in places of apostrophes.
I also noticed a couple of grammar mistakes.
Should I send an email to the university regarding both errors (apostrophe and grammar), only about the apostrophes, or don’t send an email at all?
@melodea -You’re not the first person to have a formatting problem. Admission folks will understand that those question marks were not intentional. If there were dozens of them, it would be worthwhile to send off a “clean copy” of your essay. But for just a couple, your corrections will be more bothersome than helpful. The same is true of your grammar mistakes. As I’ve said before, when an applicant writes to a college to correct spelling and grammar errors, the subtext of the message is, “I couldn’t be bothered to check carefully the first time and so now I’m bothering YOU to make the changes.” So leave it all alone. None of this will affect your admission verdicts.