Correcting application errors after submission … or not

Applying to College
921

@dajee–It’s a really bad idea to send corrections regarding activities hours unless you’ve made an EGREGIOUS error (e.g., you wrote down that you deliver pizza 3 hours/week when it’s really 30 … or vice versa).

Every time a student sends an activities-hours correction, he or she is also sending a message that suggests, “I couldn’t be bothered doing this carefully the first time so now I want YOU to spend extra time on me.”

Occasionally it’s necessary to send this kind of correction anyway, but I typically warn students to avoid doing so unless the situation feels urgent. And, from what you’ve said about your own situation, it isn’t.

Don’t worry about putting down your intended job hours and weeks. This is a very confusing part of the application and the college folks will definitely understand what you mean.

As for the places where you put 2 hours when you should have put 10, I recommend that you leave it alone. You’ll do more harm than good by sending a correction, as explained above. BUT … if you end up having an interview for this college, then it’s fine to explain the mix-up to the interviewer and ask that the correction is added to your file.

922

@lululaya- There have been many instances of essay formatting issues this year (and in past years as well) that are beyond the student’s control … i.e., the application software insists on re-formatting the essay even when the student tries to correct it. College admission officials are aware of this problem and won’t hold the poor formatting against your daughter.

BUT … if the formatting is SO bad that it makes the essay difficult to read and you feel that it really detracts from the quality of the writing, then your daughter can send in a correctly formatted essay. However, she will probably not be able to resubmit using the same application she already sent. Most applications (e.g., the Common App) will lock her out and not allow for any corrections once the application has been submitted. So if this is true for your daughter’s applications, then she should send an email to her regional rep with the properly formatted essay attached. In the email she can explain that the app program seemed to have a mind of its own and reconfigured her essay.

This is a judgment call … send the email if your daughter is really unhappy with the way the essay reads … but don’t worry about it if there are obvious formatting errors but they don’t detract from the essay in a major way.

923

Hi Sally!
I recently submitted my MIT EA App and am feeling quite good about my stat, ECs, essays and all, but I was shocked to find that I had made a few errors/typos throughout my responses. None of these were in any of the main essays, though but here’s what they looked like:

  • In the optional question on your cultural background, I wrote “Living in ____, can only be described as being the epitome of” with an obvious comma-splicing error
  • In the Maker Portfolio section, I wrote “the whole experience taught me a great amount but programming through adversity” where ‘but’ should be ‘about’
  • I also forget an ‘it’ in the Maker Portfolio

Not sure if these errors are worth e-mailing admission at MIT over, but I would greatly appreciate any advice on whether or not I should or if it would affect my chances given that I am an international.

On a separate note, in a question asking about specialized courses you’ve taken (IB, AP, etc.) I wrote my IB subjects in the form “Biology HL”. Would this be clear to the reader to be an IB Higher Level subject or should I clarify this too in an e-mail (possibly the same as above)?

Thank you!

924

@kippycuter -

NO!!! As I’ve said up above (and countless other times on this long thread), when you make little typos or other minor mistakes and then send corrections to admission officers, you are essentially conveying that you couldn’t be bothered with careful proofing so now they need to take extra time with you.

And when the errors are as small as yours are, you also might be suggesting, “I’m a bit on the obsessive side and heaven help the poor slob who gets stuck rooming with me … particularly if this kid is indeed a slob!” :wink:

Students should only send corrections when the information in the original application is important and totally wrong (e.g., an email address or Social Security number was mistyped) or when the meaning of the initial text will be completely misunderstood if it’s not corrected (like when some hapless student wrote that his goal in life was to be “Wealthy,” when he really meant “Healthy!”) Of course, corrections can also be sent when there’s an actual major change … like if you move to a new address or new school, , if you drop or add a class, etc.

But in this case, do NOT send the corrections you mentioned. Your little mistakes will not affect your admission chances but writing to the admission officials about them during this busy season might.

Yikes … you really ARE obsessive. OF COURSE, the admission folks will know what HL means. Leave it alone!!

I realize that this is a very stressful and confusing process, especially for an international student. So I’m not making fun of you. But I do want you to try to relax and not worry so much about your application now that it’s been sent.

As you know, it is EXTREMELY tough to get into MIT. And if you’re not accepted, I promise you that it won’t be because of anything that you’ve posted about here. Good luck!

925

@Sally_Rubenstone haha yes I do realize I’m being quite obsessive. Thanks and wish me luck!

926

@Sally_Rubenstone Basically on my self reported grades, I put summer classes in the courses for the school year accidentally. So when I took out those classes to move them to the summer section, my school year course grades (and if they were a semester or year long) got switched around. It shows that I got all A’s when I really had two B’s.

927

@equationlover - So have I got this right …

You self-reported A’s in two classes where you actually got B’s because of a glitch when you meant to remove your summer classes from the list but didn’t do it completely?

If that’s the case, did your counselor explain this in his or her report to the colleges? If those reports haven’t been sent yet, ask the counselor to add this in. If they HAVE been sent, I do think it’s a good idea to send a brief apology and explanation to the college or colleges that received the wrong self-reported grades.

It’s not that the admission folks will assume that you’re being dishonest. But they WILL probably be confused if they see one set of grades on your self-reported list and a different set on your transcript. They will assume that one of these is incorrect … probably YOUR list … but it will

928

Thank you so much, Sally. It is the Common App… and I think the problem was really that she didn’t preview her essay. She was so stressed out and just determined to get everything in and be done. She did a great edit of the essay- with the help of her brothers editing advice as well. I feel a little bit bad that I didn’t research and sit by her side as she submitted bc I may have noticed the preview button. The essay reads fine- only a few tabs where they shouldn’t be so she wants to leave it. I’m going to move on and hope they admissions counselors will be okay with a less than perfect presentation. Boy, the pressures are crazy these days, and it’s hard not to get caught up. I don’t think this will make or break whether she gets into a school.
What you are doing here is really such a good service. I appreciate your help, and I’m happy you are out there for the parents and especially the kids…

929

Hi - my d was working from a copy of her transcript mailed to her in August to enter her 9-11th courses. She took an online class over the summer and it did not appear on the transcript. She asked her gc about it and was told that the course would not appear for her but that they could see it on their end and not to worry about it. Turns out, the transcript the counselor sent to colleges does show the course and even though she got an A, it lowered her gpa because it wasn’t a weighted course. So the gpa she entered in the common app (from the transcript copy she had that did not show the course) does not match the gpa on the official transcript. The difference is only 4/100ths of a point, from a 4.88 to a 4.848. She had already submitted it to 2 or 3 schools. I’m thinking it is probably best to just let it go as they probably just look at the GPA on the transcript, right? One of the schools requires the SRAR and she did correct it before submitting the SRAR part, but the original app still shows the higher gpa. She is worried that schools will think she inflated her gpa on the app on purpose.

930

Thanks so much Sally

931

@zozoty- You’re absolutely right … your daughter doesn’t need to send it any correction or explanation, and the college folks won’t question her integrity. Unless there is a significant difference between a self-reported GPA and a transcript GPA, the college folks don’t care (and probably won’t even notice). It’s pretty common for students to be given one GPA number and then, as the semester rocks on, for a different one to show up on the transcript. So please tell your daughter not to sweat this, and assure her that she’s fine. (And the college folks really DON’T want to hear from her about such a picky discrepancy at such a crazy time of year.)

But on a related note, it’s pretty insane that a GPA goes DOWN after earning an “A” in a summer enrichment class. Just one more thing to hate about this process. :wink:

932

@lululaya -I appreciate your thanks. This is indeed a stressful, confusing, often frustrating process … much, much more than it should be … and I understand how tough it can be for the students going through it and for their parents. Even “seasoned” parents who are helping a second or third child navigate the admissions maze are likely to encounter obstacles that weren’t there in the past.

Most admission officials are sympathetic to the pressures that students face and to the types of errors that result. A few, of course, are less flexible than others, so there is certainly a bit of luck involved because admission outcomes may be determined to some degree by whose desk a file lands on. But your daughter shouldn’t stress about this essay-formatting problem anymore because it’s often a software issue that the admission committees are accustomed to seeing. So it’s likely they won’t even view it as HER mistake.

I really wish this process wasn’t so awful, and I’ve certainly suggested many ways to improve it. But the folks in the best position to make changes don’t seem motivated to make them. (My rant of the day!) So, instead, I try to do what I can to reduce the anxiety.

933

Sally, truly, what you’re doing is so needed. I’ve read through most of the posts - and you have put a lot of young (and old)minds to rest. Thank you❤️

934

Hi Sally,
I was going through my submitted application again, and realized that I may have listed too many hours.
I added them up, and yep, it’s 59 hours per week.
I’m pretty sure that’s too much? And most likely not believable.
But I was not deliberately lying when I wrote these hours. I mean, it was difficult to sort of estimate how many hours I spent, and sometimes I would think of weeks when one took longer than others, but I was not trying to lie or exaggerate. I really do spend a lot of hours on each activity, and they just happen to fluctuate at times and I don’t usually get a lot of sleep or eating time.
How big of an issue is this? Most of the activities were also school activities - typically taking place over lunch which is one hour. So some of the hours written on my application are included in hours I spend at school. And a lot of the hours per week that I spend are done on the weekends as well.

If it helps, here is the more specific list of ECs I have.

Taekwondo Competition Team (9, 10, 11) - 13hr/wk
Violin / Member of City Orchestra, First Violin Section (9,10,11,12) - 17hr/wk
MUN Press Team, Leader (12) (10,11,12) - 4hr/wk
Peer Crisis Support Line, Volunteer (11,12) - 10hr/wk
School Literary Magazine, Senior Editor (12) (9, 10, 11, 12) - 3hr/wk
GSA, Founding Member (11,12) - 1hr/wk
School Recycling Club, Team Leader (11,12) (10, 11, 12) - 1hr/wk
Girl Scouts, Member (9, 10) - 4hr/wk
Students Union, Member (10, 11, 12) - 1hr/wk
Kumon Teaching Assistant (12) - 5hr/wk

Most of my leadership is from senior year, which is the year where I stopped some of my activities freeing up more time as well.

I’m just not sure where to go from here. My main concern right now is that having so many hours listed will negatively impact my application.

935

@goldenbees -Don’t worry about this. You’re fine. Not all of your activities were done in every school year and some, I imagine, were done at certain times of the year while others were done at different times. Above all, the application format makes it impossible for students to provide ranges of hours. Yet often an activity may take 20 hours of your time in certain weeks (e.g., when rehearsing for an orchestra concert) and then just a couple hours in other weeks, in between concerts. But if you provide just an average number of hours per week, it doesn’t truly convey the effort that went into the endeavor during the busy times. Back in the days of paper applications, you could write down that an activity consumed 2-20 hours per week or 4-9, etc. That made a lot more sense than the current system.

Admission officials realize that students are just estimating their time commitments and that, when the hours vary from week to week, the Common App (and many others) won’t provide an accurate way to reflect this. So, again, let this go and don’t stress over it. If you’re not accepted at your top choice colleges, it won’t be because of this. Good luck!

936

Okay! Thank you so much

937

On my ED to Penn I put that my yearbook won a Gold Crown when in reality it was a Gold Medal. The teacher mispronounced it. What should I do? Will it hurt my chances? I did not mean it.

938

@BellRenjoji -The good news is that this minor mistake will have absolutely no negative impact on your application so you shouldn’t worry about it at all. But the bad news is that a yearbook award of any sort isn’t going to move the needle at a place like Penn. In other words, it certainly won’t hurt you and will be viewed as a plus. Yet it’s not the type of major award that makes an impact on Ivy admission committees.

939

@Sally_Rubenstone Thanks. But the yearbook award is a national award by the Columbia scholastic press association.

940

Will they check it?