What aspects of the Rice undergraduate experience excite you and led you to apply?
Anyone know how bad this is? You can be honest
How do you misspell Rice?
Did you misspell it as D-U-K-E?
Lice?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
OP spelled it, in one place, as “Rick.” S/he provided a .jpg which I had to delete for ToS reasons. Now let’s focus on the question.
It’s January 2nd. I guarantee you there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of threads from applicants about typos. I am of the opinion that if every college autorejected applications with typos, few would be able to fill their class. For giggles, read the “clam fart” thread [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do-p1.html%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do-p1.html]here[/url]. He was accepted.
Well, it’s not good.
Well, I once had a co-worker who had the wrong company name in her cover letter. Still got the job! It’s not good, but it all depends on who’s looking at it.
A college won’t reject a student the school would otherwise accept on the basis of one misspelled word. They want the best students they can attract-and even the best students occasionally misspell words and/or have typos on posts/letters/papers, etc
A misspelling is not as bad as putting in the name of another school. How many times did you misspell it? Did your answers show you knew you were applying to Rice and not another school?
Relax and read this: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do-p1.html
It’s not good. Yes, they usually ignore a random typo. This one is the name of the college. I’m hoping the rest of your app is stellar.
But Rice is one of a few colleges I consider very unpredictable. That’s the bigger issue. Hope for the best.
Two people posted the clam fart thread. It was/is a classic, and a fabulous read, but that happened (my how time flies) 11 years ago!! Admissions are quite different now. I agree that while your misspelling is not the end of the world, its not great. They expect you to proofread your essays and application before you submit. Since the “e” and the “k” aren’t near each other on the keyboard, they may think it was an autocorrect. Its probably not a dealbreaker, but… there is nothing you can do about it now.
Even when you proof, get someone else to proof, use spellcheck, grammarcheck, backup spellcheck, there’s invariably one that everyone/thing missed. It will happen again in college papers, in professional presentations, etc. Avoid it as much as possible, be suitably embarrassed when it happens (which it will), and then move on.
Now sending an essay to Rice that says, “I believe I will thrive with Brown’s Open Curriculum” is inexcusable.
Agree with @skieurope. Especially as the author, you often read what you expect to see rather than what is actually there. This is another reason not to leave essays till the last minute - a couple of days’ break from writing and then proofreading again will also often make it easier to spot errors.
And yeah, Rick is better than Duke. Just about every school info session we went to said they’d seen a cut and paste essay that had left another school’s name in it somewhere…
I still find typos in my dissertation and I proofed it a million times.
Not gonna lie I can’t help but feel that it’s not really all that bad. Like when I read the sentence aloud I laugh aloud when I hit “Rick” just because of the pure funniness
I know that AOs are probably in a more mature mood when they work…but regardless should one typo really keep an otherwise qualified (assuming that is the case for me) applicant out? I think it doesn’t really make sense when you’re weighing 4 years of a student’s record, life, activities, effort, etc.
The app is all they have (incl an interview report.) The more competitive a college is, the more you need to be on your toes. All sorts of little mistakes can matter. Eg, telling Dart you love the urban surroundings, plus the plethora of other bumbles.
I would not consider a typo to an essay with a cut and paste that clearly represents a totally different school.
Is it great no. But I think you will be fine if the rest of the app is terrific.
But if you don’t get an admit to Ricr I don’t think it is for the typo. #:-S
Misspelling a university’s name is a BIG blunder especially considering how prestigious and how simple it is to spell…