Do you think it will put me at a significant disadvantage if I didn’t report that I play an instrument whereas many of the other applicants do play an instrument?
@cleantable -Not one little bit.
Hi,
On my college application, I indicated that I did a club from 2015-now, but on my resume for my college interview i accidentally put the year from 2014-now. I actually only did it 2015-now, but my finger must have slipped. I used this resume onto interviews where both the interviewers didn’t require my resume in the first place, but ended up taking it anyways. Should I email the school or my interviewer to clear this up or is it really not that big of a deal?
@TS9034 -Leave this alone, but if you end up having to email any of your colleges for a different, more consequential reason (or if you have any additional interviews for colleges that received the inaccurate resume) you can mention it then. Likewise, if you haven’t sent thank-you messages to your interviewers, you can include the correction in the thank-you message.
@Sally_Rubenstone Hi Sally, I just realized in my current year courses I entered AP US History and AP United States History as two separate entries; I guess I accidentally duplicated a course I was in. Will I be judged negatively for this?
@anonymous0320 - No biggie. Don’t worry.
@Sally_Rubenstone Hello! I reused one-half of a Princeton short answer (what I did in the summer) in the additional. info to detail one of my activities to another school (because I thought I wrote it well), and forgot to delete it from my application to Princeton itself. So now it appears twice! Should I e-mail the admissions office about this?
I don’t want them to think I couldn’t be bothered and copy pasted it right from the additional info!
@queest --NO! This isn’t a big deal but you’ll make it more of one if you send an email about it.
I am in panic because I realized I submitted a wrong version of my common application essay to three universities!!! I submitted it yesterday. Should I contact universities? Thank you for your advice!
@Sally_Rubenstone In my essays I alluded to a few problems at home, but never explicitly said that one of them was a health issue. People were really worried and I ended up at the hospital a couple times and it turned not being life threatening. I didn’t say anything in the interview or in the app because I feel weird talking about it, but I didn’t realize how big it was in my life until just recently. What do I do?
@BZJuliet -No need to panic. Just email a copy of the CORRECT essay to these colleges. I suggest sending it to your regional admissions rep in each office with a Cc to the general admission office email address. Include a brief explanation of your error with an apology.
@NotTypicalNerd -Once you’ve “alluded to a few problems at home,” you’ve opened a can of worms. It would be helpful for me to see exactly what you said in your essays in context, but generally it’s a bad idea to mention such problems without providing some sense of what they are. Otherwise, admission officials may worry that you will bring serious, unresolved issues with you to campus … perhaps far more serious than these issues really were. So, if you’re comfortable doing so, you might want to email all of your regional representatives to explain your health problems. You don’t have to go into a huge amount of detail but it would be useful to them if you explain at least very generally what your issue was. You can then explain that it was a big deal in your life at the time but that you have dealt with it and that it won’t interfere with your participation in college life. Although colleges cannot reject applicants for medical reasons, it certainly does happen anyway, especially if the college folks worry that the student has emotional or medical issues that will impede their success or might be disruptive to the college community.
@Sally_Rubenstone To clarify, I didn’t mention the health problems at all. Like, they don’t know it existed. Is it better left alone or should I let them know?
@NotTypicalNerd At this point it is better to leave it alone. If the admissions officers don’t know you have any issues then no need to bring it up. Especially if your application (grades, ec’s, and test scores) is strong. The colleges are building a class of well rounded students. Health problems and overcoming them can be a great essay topic. But if it wasn’t mentioned then don’t bring it up. A lot of times applicants get “buyers remorse” after clicking submit. If there are no egregious errors then it’s best to relax, enjoy your senior year and wait patiently for decisions.
Hi! I just noticed that for my Duke application I marked that I’d be submitting an optional portfolio to showcase art talent, but I never did. I completely forgot that I marked Yes and forgot to do it. How will this affect my chances? Should I call them tomorrow or leave it?
@NotTypicalNerd -In THAT case, definitely DON’T mention this now. In your original post, you said you’d alluded to problems, and I was concerned that this allusion could do you some harm. But if you haven’t mentioned the issues already, then certainly don’t do so now. The only exception could be if these issues are reflected in your transcript (e.g., you went from straight A’s to several C’s in a semester or your transcript shows a month of absences). If that’s the case, send me a private message and we’ll talk about next steps.
@kikir328 - The Duke admission folks may be scrambling to find out what happened to your “missing” portfolio. So send an email to your regional admissions rep and Cc the general admissions address explaining briefly (and somewhat apologetically) that you changed your mind and never submitted it.
This will only affect your chances if you are a borderline applicant at Duke (as so many are) but an amazing artist, and yet the admission folks will never get to see samples of your work. But if you are the standard good-but-not-Renoir student artist, then this won’t affect your chances at all.
Hi Sally,
First off, thank you so much for answering so many questions.
I accidentally put I was in MUN for 11th and 12th but I was only in it for 11th, should I contact my schools about it? I only did it for 3 of my schools before realizing and fixed it for my other schools. I’ve been paranoid that they’re going to call my school and then somehow find out I wasn’t in MUN this year and then blacklist me. I understand it’s been addressed throughout the discussion, but it’s still unclear to me.
Thank you so much!!!
@mdwrcdc26 -Don’t do anything about this unless you are applying to University of California campuses. They do (occasionally) spot check activities list. So if you are aiming for any UC’s, shoot them a quick email to correct the error, even though it’s probably overkill.
For all other colleges do nothing. You could possibly irk admission folks by making this minor change. No one will unearth the mistake, and 1 year vs. 2 years in MUN will not affect any of your admission decisions in the least.