@garvey-- Given that the uncle is (or was) a long-time administrator at Harvard as well as an alum, a brief email to the student’s regional admission rep explaining the omission is a decent idea. Ultimately, unless the uncle is really a big cheese at Harvard (either through his work or through his wallet), this new information probably won’t move the needle for the applicant. However, in those rare “all things being equal” situations, it can’t hurt to have the connection in the student’s file. But note that when “legacy” status is discussed, it doesn’t typically include aunts and uncles. Even so, I still vote for sending the update.
@rapmacl - Your daughter can’t use the Common App to make changes to the applications that have ALREADY been sent. Instead, she should send an email to her regional admissions rep at each college that already received a Common App, with a Cc to the main admissions address. In her email, she should provide the schedule update, explaining briefly why her initial list was wrong.
If her current course load appears less rigorous than her intended one because the classes that were eliminated were more challenging, she should be sure to point out in her email that the reduced load was beyond her control but due to the elimination of the classes she’d wanted.
The college folks will see the new classes on her transcript and will wonder why they don’t match the list on her application, so this explanation is important. It would also be helpful for your daughter to ask her guidance counselor to mention these changes in the school’s letter of reference, if this hasn’t been sent already.
But IF there are Common App colleges to which your daughter has not applied so far but WILL apply, she can correct the course list right on her Common App and the new schools will receive the amended list of classes.
This is not anything your daughter needs to worry about but it IS important that she clarifies the mismatched lists with an email to every college that already received the wrong one.
Thanks again for your help. This is a state school where you have to apply to a “school”, so I think it is indeed binding. I will have her call again.
Hello world.
@Sally_Rubenstone Hey Sally, sorry for interrupting but I believe that i’ve made a foolish mistake. So I just turned in my ED to Emory last week. However, while going through my common app pdf I found an error where I put the wrong SAT test date for the Highest Math section. Believe me, this’s a weird one. I took the sat on June 2 and Oct8 and got 800 on both the math sections, and since my English section from October was higher(meaning this is basically my highest combined score as well), I only sent my October official score report from CB. However, on the common app, I put June 2 as my highest math date and the number of total tests taken I also put 1. I know it sounded messed up.
Believe me, I found this error last night (actually 2 in the morning) and started to panic. Should I reach out to the admission office? If you could please give me some advice I would truly appreciate that!
@Sally_Rubenstone So I realized for one of my Common app activities, I forgot to put that I worked on a project with a professor, and instead just said “worked on x”. I know this is something significant (working with a professor.) In the additional information section, I added a website that talks about what I worked on, but if they don’t read it, they won’t know that I worked with a professor. Is this a minor thing, or should I correct it?
@AnxiousLuke -No need to be anxious. This is not a big deal at all. You could easily do nothing, and the admission officials at Emory would figure out your testing history … assuming that you sent them official SAT score reports. But there’s also no harm in sending an email to your regional rep to explain the confusion. Keep your message brief and apologize for providing extra work at a hectic time. And try not to make the situation even more confusing. So instead of telling Emory what you said above, say something simpler like:
** I made a small error on my Common App when I self-reported my SAT scores. I took the SAT twice (June 2 and Oct 8). I scored 800 on the Math section both times, and my best Verbal score was ________ [insert score] on October 8. I apologize for adding to your work load during this busy time of year, but I worried that I’d add to it MORE if I left you confused! **
I promise you that this little snafu will have no effect at all on your admission verdict.
@equationlover -I’m confused. Did you actually say “x” (planning to fill it in later) or did you name the project but not mention the professor? I assume it’s the latter. And if that’s the case, don’t do anything. You’re fine and this is nothing to fret over. The admission folks WILL read the Additional Information section and connect it to your listing in the Activities section. (The Additional Information description names the same project that you included under “Activities,” right?)
@Sally_Rubenstone I meant to say that that I wanted to put the to put the professor’s name, but didn’t say what I meant to say was, “worked on x with a mentorship from a professor at x university” X meaning name or professor or the name of the project. Instead I put, “worked on x project” and forgot to say it was a mentorship or that it was with a certain professor.
@equationlover -As long as the project described in Additional Information is clearly the same one mentioned under “Activities,” you’re fine and should do nothing more (except to stop worrying). 
@Sally_Rubenstone Omg you responded really fast thank you so very much. I will email the admission office then but since I only sent my October official report to them should I include a screenshot of my June Sat report in the email too?
@AnxiousLuke - The screenshot isn’t necessary. Emory allows Score Choice. So, since your best set of scores is from October, the admission folks have no need to see your June scores.
Thank you so much, Sally! Guess I could finally breath again.
Thanks!
Hello Sally, My daughter put in the credits earned while taking a college course in summer wrong. She put it as 5 credits instead of 3.She is planning to inform the xolleges she has applied to so far. Will this have an effect on her application?
^ similar to the question above, when I was switching summer classes with school year classes, grades got messed up. I don’t want admissions to think I was lying about that. However, my transcripts are being sent to the schools. My consoler said it would be okay. Should I assume this?
Hi @Sally_Rubenstone I realized that for a lot of activities I put in the wrong hours. I underrepresented a lot of my activities; I put two hours when it was supposed to be around 10 for some. Also, I’m starting a job, and I put my intended hours and number of weeks rather than the actual 0’s (since I haven’t started yet). Should I notify my college about this? I applied to an Ivy league. Thanks in advance!
Hi Sally,
Thanks for your time and advice:) My daughter recently submitted her early action applications. After reviewing the PDFs the colleges downloaded, she found that her essay had been reformatted. There are indents before some paragraphs and some extra spaces between sentences. Of course this should have been caught by editing, but was not. The content is good, and there are no spelling or grammatical mistakes- she DID edit her google docs version.
Should she resubmit the essay with the correct formatting?
@Ranipetgirl -This will have NO effect at all on your daughter’s applications. While it’s fine for her to send a correction to her regional admissions reps at her target colleges (and thus establish a connection with the reps, if she hasn’t done so already), this is also a crazy-busy time for admission folks and they don’t need any extra mail. So there’s really no need to do ANYTHING at this point. The admissions readers are barely going to glance at the number of credits your daughter wrote down. They will be far more concerned with the name of the course she took and her grade in it. So she could actually do NOTHING now and it would be fine.
Did she send her target schools an official transcript from her summer college? If she did, then the correct information will be on the transcript, so she really has no reason to send a correction.
The only time that this error will matter is when she has made her final college choice and is trying to get credit for her summer class (which some colleges will award and some won’t). At that point she will need to send in an official transcript and make sure that the number of credits earned is clear. Meanwhile, don’t worry at all!
@equationlover -If your counselor says you’re fine, I suspect that you are. But I really can’t understand what the mix-up was from the way you’ve described it here. Can you please explain more clearly (but briefly!!) what happened?