Mistake in my Common App Essay

I wrote my personal statement for the common app based on altruism and how it helped me to advance in adulthood.
But it one line of my essay. Sadly in the end of the conclusion. I reworded the sentence but forgot to take out the word “not” from the original sentence. THIS MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.
when I meant to say my action were of pure altruism. It instead says my actions were not of pure altruism.

I submitted this essay to UVA. Upenn. Berkeley. And William and Mary.

Could I contact the school and talk to them about this mistake. Could anything be done.

If it can’t be changed. How bad would my chances of getting into the schools I listed be affected.

I’m so worried.

Hey Star,

The answer is, in short, don’t worry. Everyone makes typos. In all honesty, most admissions officers are only skimming your essay the first few rounds. There’s a chance they may catch it (the human mind is programmed to mentally fix most typos). But even if they do, then it’s a big question of if they’ll get the gist anyway and if they’ll care enough about one typo to reject.

College counselors stress typos and editing for good reason - we want to make sure your chances are as good as possible and want to account for anything that can be accounted for. But ultimately, part of my position is I have students obsessively check for typos because - even though there’ll always be one - I’d rather have one than eight. One is forgivable, eight is sloppy.

I don’t think you should contact your schools, seeing as it is only one typo and in the height of admissions season they might get annoyed with such a minor detail.

Thank you guys so much! I’ve been stressing about this since I found the mistake. At this point, I can only hope for the best.

Proof, proof, proof, have someone else proof, hit submit and don’t look back.

little late for that unfortunately. T.T

did you get in?

@muu2000 i dont find out until january for uva. and like way later for all the other schools. we’ll just have to wait and see.