The deadline is January 15
@Drayaud-Perfect! While often it’s fine to do this kind of follow-up after the deadline, if you wait until about a week before the deadline to call, that will give the admission folks to get through their post-holiday craziness a bit.
Hello Sally, I am an international undergrad in MSU and applying to some top-ranked engineering graduate school (UCLA, USC, etc."). I just found out that the resume I submitted has a “term-typo” in the research experience section. I wrote “Building IF marker tracking system.” I want to say “infrared”, but the correct abbreviation for “infrared” is “IR”. This is only a small part of my resume and also not my major contribution and work. Also, electrical engineering barely works with Infrared (that is why I have this typo). Is this a very major and breaking error? Should I update my resume? Thank you very much!
@Shadowarrior -You made a very minor error that is not going to hurt your admission outcomes. But it will also not hurt you (and would be the wise move) to retype your resume with the error corrected and send it to your target colleges with a very brief note explaining the typo and asking them to please use the updated resume instead of the original one. Again, this will not cause you any problems. If you are not admitted to the colleges on your list, I promise that it won’t be because of this small mistake.
Hello Sally, Thank you very much for replying my question! And I found another problem…the personal statement I submitted to Umich has a title:“personal history statement” instead of “personal statement.” Since Umich wants two statements: one is an academic statement of purpose, and another is a personal statement (about your pass experience something). Umich asks us to include the type (title) of the document (like “personal statement”), name, programs, etc. at the top of all the documents. Does that matter if I write the title as “Personal History Statement” instead of “Personal Statement”? The content is very correct and this statement is about my history experience. Thank you very much!
What you wrote is fine. It doesn’t matter at all.
Thank you very much!
Hello Sally, I caught an error on my parents’ information about employment. I thought they were self-employed since we have a family restaurant, but it turns out they don’t actually own it, my uncle does. I know in no way does it affect me so am I stressing over this too much? Should I just change it for my other colleges and move on?
Thank you!
Hi Sally, happy holidays!
I don’t how how I managed to miss this, but in my application, I did not self report my AP Subject test scores although I have AP classes on my transcript. However, I listed ‘National AP Scholar’ in my awards, which is an achievement granted only by gaining 3’s and above on over 3 AP tests. My transcript is weaker than I’d like due to personal circumstances so I thought demonstrating proficiency on these tests might have helped. That being said, is it worth emailing admissions counselors over? Shall I just waste the $15 per school and send official AP score reports? Should I wait until I hear back from my ED II school to spend that additional money? Or should I just leave the issue entirely?
Thank you so much
@GGJ628 - You made a very minor and inconsequential error. It is not something that you need to worry about or to correct by contacting admission offices. However, if you have already applied for financial aid, your financial aid forms should indicate that your parents are not self-employed if your uncle is paying them a wage. So it’s important that your financial aid forms accurately indicate your parents’ employment status.
However, did your applications say that your parents work in a family restaurant or simply that they are self-employed? The restaurant info is worth mentioning. This is a detail that might work a tiny bit in your favor at decision time, especially if you work in the restaurant too. The admission folks may like the idea of a whole extended family pulling together to help the restaurant succeed.
So … if you HAVEN’T mentioned anywhere in your applications that your family is involved in this restaurant, then it could be a good idea to write to all admission offices where you submitted your application already and explain the discrepancy.
This is definitely NOT something to stress over in the least. So stop worrying. 
@auniversitygal -Do NOT spend any money to send official AP scores. You only have to pay to send them to the one college you ultimately decide to attend, and you shouldn’t do that until next summer (and even then only if this college will give you credit for these scores or will allow you to accelerate because of them).
So … instead, simply email the scores to your colleges this week, if they are strong. If you are applying to the more selective colleges, only 4’s and 5’s will help your cause. At some schools, 3’s could work in your favor, too, but not at the hyper-competitive places.
Although AP exam results are not an official part of the admission process, it definitely CAN help a student to do well on multiple tests. So good scores are worth sending but just don’t shell out any $$$ at this point to do it.
Hi Sally, My daughter submitted one application with her father’s graduate school listed incorrectly. Not sure how that slipped past us, but it has been corrected in all future applications. Should she notify the college that she submitted to prior to the finding the error, that her dad didn’t go to Columbia for his MBA but rather NYU? Thank you!
@momoftwins2017 - If your “Things to nag your daughter about” list is already a mile long, do nothing. But, otherwise, she can send a brief note to the admission office to correct this very minor error. She can even toss in a touch of humor if it comes naturally to her (e.g., “I suppose I should have listened more carefully to my dad’s endless grad school sagas, then I might have remembered where he actually went … !”)
But I think it’s only relevant if the application was actually sent to Columbia, Barnard or NYU. If it wasn’t, you can let the mistake go unless it’s keeping you … or your daughter … awake at night.
Thank you! And thankfully it was to none of the schools above!
And I do believe that is exactly what was happening as she filling out parent section. : )
hi! In my resume that I sent to colleges I forgot to write my positions (ex. president, leader, etc) except for on one of the activities.
However, my position is stated twice (both in my activities section and in my additional information section). Is it a big mistake?
Worried that admissions officers only think that I had a leadership position in just one of my activities, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a big deal because my leadership positions are stated two other places in my application.
@callmegray -This is not a big mistake. The activities list on the Common Application (or on any other application that a college uses) is the primary place that admission officials look for leadership roles. So if you named your leadership roles there, you need not fret that you left them off of your resume. Some college folks don’t look at resumes at all or only glance at them at end of the evaluation process to see if there’s anything important on them that the rest of the application didn’t reveal. (If your mistake had been the opposite … i.e., you’d listed the leadership on the resume but not on the application … it would be a larger error.)
However, there is no down side to sending an updated resume via email or snail mail to each of the colleges that already received the old one. You can add in your leadership positions along with other changes in your endeavors–if any–that have taken place since you sent the first resume.
You can include a brief cover note asking admission committees to replace the old resume with the new one. You don’t even have to explain why. You can simply say that this more recent one is an “Updated” version. Admission officials know that student activities can change in the blink of an eye. And, indeed, once you sit down to do the editing, you may realize that there is at least a little bit of new information that you want to include.
If you do send a new resume, make sure that it clearly includes who you are … your full name as it appeared on your application, your high school name, home town, and an applicant ID number (if the college assigned one … many don’t).
Hey Sally! I submitted my college apps today and after submission, I was checking my apps again when I noticed that half of my colleges have the number of SATs I have taken as 2 instead of 1. I remember specifically changing this before submission as I switched from SAT to SAT subjects for Jan. Two of the colleges on my list require all score submissions. I’m really freaking out. Should I email the schools?
@socksnthings -No need to freak out. This isn’t a big deal but you definitely should email the colleges that got the wrong info to clear up potential confusion. Just explain the mistake briefly, much as you’ve done here. Note however that most admission offices are closed until after the New Year’s holiday. So don’t do this immediately. Instead, take a few days to review your application again very carefully. That way, if you spot additional errors that require correction, you can tell the colleges about them all at once and you won’t freak out even more because you have to send yet ANOTHER email. But, meanwhile, relax. This is not anything that is going to affect your admission decisions.
Hey @Sally_Rubenstone ! Quick question. I recently Submitted my Columbia supplements, but i realized that during one part of the essay, I accidentally said Yale instead of Columbia. I feel really stupid, but I wasn’t sure how to go about correcting this. Do you have any suggestions? I just hope this doesn’t completely ruin my application chances because I spent a lot of time on the essays and just overlooked that mistake.
@biologylover -If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first student in the universe to make this sort of mistake, and when I worked at Smith College, I would even see *guidance counselors/i make similar ones (e.g., “Ashley is the perfect student for Wellesley”).
Admission folks realize that their candidates can’t apply to only one college in today’s hyper-competitive climate, and so they won’t hold it against you for aiming for Yale as well as Columbia. However, the failure to proof your essays could work against you, at least a tiny bit.
While some advisors would suggest that you just let this go, rather than calling additional attention to it, I recommend that you send a brief email to your regional rep at Columbia and confess that you caught the mistake only after the fact. Tell him or her what you’ve said here (that you worked really hard on the Columbia essays and you’d hate for this one nanosecond of carelessness to torpedo your Columbia chances). If Columbia is your top choice and you’d pick it over Yale, be sure to say so. And you can even take a bit of a lighthearted approach if it comes naturally to you (e.g., “I promise that, if you accept me, I’ll arrive in upper Manhattan in September and not in New Haven!”)
With hindsight, you may look back and laugh at your error, but it does feel frustrating now. So either ignore it and move on or follow up, as I suggested. There is really no right or wrong approach.