Correcting application errors after submission … or not

@yammie8335 -You can ask your community college transfer counselor if the school routinely sends some sort of “profile” with student transcripts that explains the grading system.

But, from what you’ve told me, even if the answer is YES, the profile may not clearly spell out that there are limited honors classes or that it’s possible to earn an A+ in some classes but not in others. So there’s no down side to you submitting a brief statement–much like the one you’ve written here–that provides these details. If there is an “Additional Information” section on your applications, you can put it there. If not, simply send an email to the main address of the admission offices at all of the colleges on your list. If you’ve already corresponded with the staff member who oversees transfer applicants, then you should copy him or her. If you haven’t, it’s a good idea to look on the website (or phone the admission office) to ask who the transfer liaison is so that you can Cc your message appropriately .

Hello,
So I just realized I may have misreported one of my awards in the honors section. It’s an academic all conference award, and on the award it says I was selected for having a 3.2 GPA throughout the athletic season. So here is where my mistake comes in. I assumed that I was awarded this every year 9-11 while doing my sport because I had above a 3.2 every year so I marked it 9,10,11 when really I was only “selected” for the award in 10th grade. I’m honestly very confused by it but now I don’t want to seem like I’m lying about this award, because even though I qualified for it every year I didn’t actually get selected every year. I feel so stupid. I already sent admissions officers a correction two weeks ago because I missed the self report of AP scores, and I’m driving myself crazy finding tiny mistakes everywhere that now will annoy admissions officers. So, will this mistake make me seem like a liar and hurt my chances? I’m sorry for posting again.

@Pbulrupele -Please leave this alone! College admission folks are not going to care a lick about an award that does no more than to acknowledge what they already know about you … your GPA. And they definitely won’t care if you wrote down that you received this “honor” for one year or for 100! So stop fretting over this or about any other perceived flaws in applications you’ve already sent.

Instead, if you feel the urge to obsess over your college applications, your time would be better spent by showing the colleges that you’ve already applied to (or where you plan to apply) that you’re truly interested. Visit their websites; sign up for more information even if you are already up to your eyeballs in their information! Attend their virtual tours or info sessions; open their emails–as overwhelming or repetitious as they may seem–click on the links in those emails, etc. In other words, convince the admission folks that you are likely to enroll if admitted … but without sending any more application-correction missives!!

Alright, thank you. I guess I was worried because I didn’t really specify what the award was for, as I couldn’t fit it in the 100 characters. But I will try to take your advice and stop worrying about this. Thank you

Hello,
When I was submitting a recent application I noticed that under the activities section it repeated my description of a French exchange program I participated in where I was supposed to describe my participation in key club. I noticed this when proofreading my application and fixed it, but even after the preview showed that I had fixed the mistake, my application still shows the repeated information. This issue occurred for 4 of my applications, so should I leave my application how it is, or should I get in touch with the admissions offices of the schools and explain my situation?

I have already submitted the 4 applications, sorry if I didn’t make that clear.

Hi!

I’m worried about a few mistakes I made in the additional information section of the common app.

MUN is one of the more important activities I’ve listed on my common app, and I wanted to list some of the awards that I had won in the additional information section (I didn’t think they would fit under the ‘academic honors’ section.

However, I’ve just realized that I accidentally wrote down the wrong year for 2 of my awards. I’d won the awards at our school’s 2019 and 2018 MUN conferences, but I’ve listed 2020 and 2019 on the common app instead.

Additionally, I’d also listed down that I was elected deputy secretary-general for our school’s 2020 MUN conference. The issue is that a deputy secretary-general doesn’t actually participate in the conference, they supervise instead. So it wouldn’t make sense for someone who was elected deputy secretary-general for a particular year to win an award that same year as well.

Should I send an email clarifying the mistake? Or would it hurt my chances to do so?

@pollaja35 -If your mistake had been the other way around (i.e., you’d repeated the Key Club description and omitted the French-exchange description), I might suggest sending a correction. But, in THIS case, you should let it go UNLESS your role/activities in the Key Club are unusual.

The college folks, skimming quickly through your activities list, may note that you made what they’ll view as the equivalent of a typo … in other words, no big deal at all. And they will understand that you didn’t include your Key Club blurb by mistake (if they manage to catch the error at all … which they might not). However, they all know what the Key Club is. So only send the correction if YOUR Key Club endeavors are significant and atypical. Otherwise, let this go and don’t worry about it. It won’t have any impact on your admission decisions. But if you are going to be sending out more applications, double-check to confirm that you’ve corrected the mistake before you do.

@erabub -Let this go. No one in admission offices is going to notice or care about your mistake. Admission officials will definitely not catch the discrepancy between the dates you listed for your awards and the fact that this is inconsistent with a deputy secretary-general role. What they WILL notice, instead, is that you won awards at MUN and held an important leadership position. Beyond that, they aren’t going to notice or care.

So don’t send an email to amend this, and don’t fret over it either. I promise you that, if you aren’t admitted to any of your target schools, it will NOT be because of this minor snafu that no one is going to notice.

Keep in mind that, every time a student sends an email to correct application errors, the subtext of this email is, “I didn’t take extra time to proofread carefully, so now I expect YOU to take extra time to add this correction to my file.”

An email like that isn’t an automatic deal-breaker by any means, but it’s still something you should avoid, unless your error is significant. And, in THIS case, it definitely ISN’T. So don’t worry!

Thank you so much for responding to my question! I’d been worried about this for the entirety of yesterday.

@yes7906 -This doesn’t sound like it’s worth correcting (especially since you’ve already sent in a correction) but it really depends on the significance of the activity that you inflated from a two-year commitment to a three. If, for instance, you said you were class president for three years and not two or that you were on varsity basketball for three years (though you were actually just on JV as a sophomore), then you should set the record straight. But for more typical high school activities that don’t require elections, try-outs, etc. (Key Club, Latin Club, et al.), just let it go.

@yes7906 -As long as you didn’t say you were president for three years, then let it go.

Hello,

Okay, so I basically wrote the wrong exam dates for THREE of my AP exams (self-report). Like what year I took it. I can submit a report through the application portal but I don’t know If I should. Or it if it isn’t really a big deal. I’ve been told by some people it isn’t something to stress out about and especially not to point it out. But I don’t know, I’m kind of an overthinker.

P.S.A my last day to fix this November 23rd so please let me know.

-Thank you

@xxlolok --This definitely isn’t a big deal, but–since there’s a portal available for corrections–then you should use it. It might confuse admission officers a tad if they happen to notice that the year you took certain AP exams doesn’t correspond with the years your took the corresponding classes.

For any student in similar straits who DOESN’T have a portal available to correct this sort of minor error, another option would be to (nicely) ask your school counselor to correct the minor mistake in their Mid-Year Report. Most school counselors would be willing to mention this.

Your transcript could also have the right dates on it. It could, of course, confuse the admission folks even MORE if they see that a test is listed as 2020 on your transcript but 2019 on your application–or vice versa. However, they’ll probably just assume that it’s the transcript that’s right and that the mistake was on YOUR end And–after that–they’ll forget about it.

So, really, this is nothing to worry about, but a quick correction on the portal before the Nov 23 deadline is the smart move…

Hi Sally!

Unfortunately, I made quite a few mistakes on my coursework history. I’ve already sent an email though the docs email listing out my errors and the correct information. I also emailed all of the schools individually, and so far all I have gotten is UCB and SB telling me they do not accept post submission corrections. UCI told me to send another message once I receive my login info for my portal. I haven’t received anything back from the docs email, although I sent that less than a week ago so that makes sense. I’m really worried. Do you think corrections to coursework history can be made? esp at UCR because I want to go there the most.

Hi,
I have mistakenly put the wrong dates for my 9th and 10th grade years on my UC application. I only noticed it after I submitted my application. Do you think it’ll have a major negative affect on my acceptance? I am really worried about this mistake. I know people have said I can fix this for certain schools once they send me my student portal but I’m just so worried.

Hello,
I have already submitted my UC application but I realized I accidentally put AP Biology for my 9th grade academic history instead of H Biology AB. I did take AP Biology, but in tenth grade. I was just wondering what I could do to fix it.

Hi @Sally_Rubenstone!

Thank you so much for all of the helpful info you’ve been providing! I was reading the thread and I didn’t really see anyone in my current situation but I might have missed it.

So I’ve already submitted the UC application but I realized that I had forgotten to include the Economics HP class that I will be taking the spring semester of my senior year. At my school, we take a semester of AP Gov and a semester of Economics HP. On my application, I had put that I will be taking my AP Gov class for the whole year.

Is this a big deal and should I be worried? Should I contact all of the UCs that I’ve applied to? Thank you for your time!

@Winter17

This isn’t a big deal but I do recommend sending a correction. The UC’s can sometimes be fussy about self-reported classes. So, although the discrepancy is minor, it’s still wise to set the record straight. But don’t worry about making this small mistake.

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Hello @Sally_Rubenstone!
I have already submitted my UC application but I realized I accidentally put AP Biology for my 9th grade academic history instead of H Biology AB. I did take AP Biology, but in tenth grade, but I reported the grades correctly. I was just wondering what I could do to fix this.