I applied for a most selective school last month, which I assume are the colleges that would weigh essays the most when compared to other schools.
Now that I read over those essays, I noticed that one of them, about a project to raise awareness for some community cause, was just a bit pretentious and overconfident as I said “I enlightened students.” The rest of the essay was fine, but this one phrase caught my eye. My question is, how bad could it be? Thanks!
Literally nothing affected if it is just one sentence. And if the accomplishment matches with your performance, it helps.
You can’t change it now, so don’t worry. Remember, you have the luxury of reading your essays multiple times, so you might be hyper aware of any perceived flaws. They are going to read it once or twice and won’t be over analyzing it.
The readers know you are young and they know it is really hard to strike the correct tone when they basically ask you to showcase yourself but you don’t want to sound overweening. That’s really a hard line to walk. They will cut you slack on the odd word. You should not worry about it.