@jwalche. No it wasn’t a deal breaker for my son. He was fortunate and got accepted everywhere.
In fact as parents, we made quite a few blunders. I went back about a year ago and re-read all of the parent essays that we wrote. Here is an example of something that left me mortified: In the Andover application
Obviously a cut-and-paste error by me. But it didn’t seem to hurt him. So bottom line - they only skim through the parents essays to make sure you’re not a weirdo. Just be honest and I’m sure you’ll be fine.
I confess I did “overshare” at one school, and we are pretty certain the parent interview/questionaire was why she was waitlisted at that particular school. Still feel guilty about it, but happily we learned our lesson after that one mistake! Now that she is applying to colleges, thank goodness for Chimneykid, we are no longer part of the process. :-@