Thank you so much for you advice. I think I’ll send a follow-up e-mail just to be safe.
Hello Sally! My child submitted to northwestern yesterday and immediately realized the supplement essay was the rough draft, copied and pasted from an early, unedited version. The sentiments are the same, but it’s not polished and reads disjointedly, a bit like an outline. Ugh. Send the final draft in an email? Leave it alone? Thanks!
@marjie -Oy! This isn’t how you want to start the New Year, but it’s not a disaster either. I don’t know if Northwestern admission officials review applications entirely electronically now or if they still take an “old school” approach by printing out the forms … or at least the essays … and putting them in a student folder.
So your daughter’s best bet is to cover all the bases. She should email her regional admissions rep, explain her error, and attach an electronic version of the correct essay. She can point out in the cover note that she has also snail-mailed a hard copy to the admission office.
When she sends the new essay–both the email and snail-mail versions–she should be sure that her name, school name, home town and applicant ID number (if the university has issued one) are on everything she sends.
Hope the rest of 2017 is smoother sailing. 
Hi! So my counselor sent me her PDF of everything that she has submitted, to make me sure that everything’s fine. I checked it and right on the top, to my horror she put my phone number instead of hers, is it necessary for One of us to send an e-mail? Thanks a lot!
@alpenlibe -Many years ago, I had a very good friend who worked in a college news office. One day she telephoned me by mistake. She thought she was calling a prominent professor in the German department at her school whom she needed to interview about some hot topic, but instead she dialed me. I realized the error almost instantly, so–without telling my friend that she hadn’t actually called the prof–I put on my best (but still awful) German accent and let my friend conduct her interview. I replied to her questions with nonsensical and outrageous answers and figured that my friend would catch on any second. But she didn’t. Finally I tried to tell her that she was speaking to me and not to any faculty member, but I was doubled over with laughter and couldn’t get the words out.
So your post made me think back to that day, and I laughed again as I imagined the conversation you could have with a college admission official who dialed your number expecting to speak with your counselor. Just think of the possibilities! (“This is the most brilliant student to ever walk the earth, a future Nobel Prize winner for certain!”)
But, seriously, I don’t think you need to correct this mistake yourself. If the application with the wrong phone number went to just one or two colleges, your counselor may want to send a correction. If it went to many more colleges, she can let it go for now, and IF a college official were to call YOU when trying to reach HER, simply explain that the counselor messed up, and have the CORRECT number handy.
Note also that most school counselors will send out a mid-term report around the end of January when students receive their first semester grades. So this would be a good time for your counselor to amend the error. Since she’ll probably be writing to all your colleges anyway, she can point out her earlier goof and provide the accurate phone number.
@Sally_Rubenstone I submitted my Princeton application last night and noticed a typo in the Activities part of the Common App. I inadvertently typed “expanded” as “enpanded.” I desperately need to get this corrected. Do you by any chance know how I can do that? Thanks a lot in advance!
@gupta197 - you just PM’ed me about this and I answered. I said to absolutely let it go. If you send a correction, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot. Relax. It’s no big deal.
i accidentally sent in my common app saying i have a fee waiver and that i “can provide a supporting statement from a school official, college access counselor, financial aid officer, or community leader” because i thought i needed to put that there when I did an onsite (a college rep came to my school, checked my application, let me know if i am accepted on the spot) I put i had a fee waiver because I didn’t need to pay the school’s application fee since I was doing an onsite. However, I left on my common app that I do have a fee waiver, when originally I didn’t. Now I don’t know how to pay the other school’s application fee?!?!
I accidentally self-reported a English/Math/Reading/Science ACT score set of 36/36/36/35 when it should have been 36/36/35/36 to two of my common app schools. I only took the ACT once, and each of the schools should be receiving my official scores directly from ACT shortly. Should I bother pointing out the error in my self-reported scores?
@Sally_Rubenstone thank you for all of the help that you offer to nervous applicants like me!!
@jaygee5 -I’ve never dealt with a situation exactly like yours before. Did you go back into your Common App and hit “Edit” at the bottom of the fee waiver page? If there was no “Edit” option, then I guess you can’t change that answer after you’ve submitted the Common App once. (Maybe someone else knows if this is true???)
So, if you can’t edit your initial answer, your next step is to contact the Common App tech support and explain to them what you’ve said here. (Look for the “Contact Us” tab on the “Applicant Solutions” page.)
The Common App staff should be able to reset your Common App so that you are no longer requesting a fee waiver.
WORST CASE SCENARIO: If you can’t seem to get your Common App to reset so that you can pay the fees at your other schools, simply send a email to the admission office at each remaining college and explain your snafu and ask if you should pay the fee with a check sent via snail mail.
Hopefully, the Common App folks will get this straightened out for you, but it won’t affect your admission chances if you end up having to go old school and mail in a check.
@ap_seidel -I will bet my mortgage money that no admission official at any college will notice the discrepancy between your self-reported scores and your actual scores. Definitely don’t correct this minuscule mistake! The colleges will use the official score reports, and it’s not as if you wrote down 36’s when you really had 26’s … or 16’s! So definitely leave this one alone.
And you’re welcome. Sadly, being nervous comes with the college-application territory. The process has become so inconsistent and convoluted and the outcomes can often seem capricious. But, ultimately, most students should end up at a college where they are happy and engaged, whether it’s a top choice or not.
Hey @Sally_Rubenstone! I just submitted some of my applications yesterday, and after reviewing the PDF today I realized that some additional words for the description of my activities were cut off, including one for an internship that is closely related to my desired major. Should I be worried about this?
Thank you!
Hi @Sally_Rubenstone! For my common app writing for NYU, I said that I wanted to go for Social and Cultural Analysis (which is the department of the school) instead of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Should I email them to correct the error?
@makingmywaydowntown -Sure. A follow-up email will be helpful and it will even give you the chance to explain (very briefly) why the Gender and Sexuality Studies major is a great fit for you (but don’t just repeat anything that you already wrote in the application).
@futurenyus -Sorry, but I have no way of knowing what you should do if you don’t explain what you actually wrote and what you MEANT to write concerning your internship.
@Sally_Rubenstone My problem is that some of the sentence got cut off. The sentence was, “Assisted with designing Android applications for all the exhibit, helping with everything from the coding of the apps to the graphic design and user interface.” I believe it was cut off right after “the coding of the apps” phrase. Thank you for your help!
@futurenyus -You will sound overly picky (and potentially annoying 
) if you send this on its own as a correction. The admission folks will get the gist of what you meant from what you did manage to include, and the few omitted words aren’t going to influence your admission outcome. BUT … if you haven’t already sent your colleges a separate resume, you can certainly do so and can thus include everything that was left out on the application. (Most colleges other than Stanford and a handful of others are okay with separate resumes.)
Sally - I am sure everyone is so grateful for your help. A little common app formatting question - online there does not show spacing between paragraphs in the essays/supps. In the preview & PDF it does show up. Colleges will most likely review the PDF right? If we put in space bt paragraphs on common app then spacing on the PDF is rather large. thanks for advice!
@Sally_Rubenstone This is for NYU! So, I would just email them a copy of my resume, correct?