<p>I applied ED to a school on November 13th, with all of the necessary paperwork and recommendations completed, including the counselor's. A few days later, everything was marked as 'in' on the university's portal, and I was left with only a mild sense of nausea as I waited for December 15th. Things were going pretty much according to plan. </p>
<p>Then, my counselor forwarded me the letter of recommendation she used on the Common App, just in case I wanted to use it for other applications. It's a nice letter, full of teacher quotes and the usual hyperbole but, the whole way through it, my stomach was sinking like a rock. </p>
<p>She freakin' spelled my name wrong. Even the quote she pulled from my mother has the 'a' in my name swapped out for an 'e'. Is it going to hurt me that my counselor can't be bothered to check the spelling of my very average name?</p>
<p>Why would the college care that she spelled your name wrong? As long as the college can match the recc with your application (which they should easily be able to do since the letter came from your counselor), that’s all that matters. The colleges don’t care whether your counselor can spell your name right unless she wrote “Janice Johnson” and your name is “David Petulant.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I hope you’ve taken the time to write and give thank-you notes to your GC and the teachers who wrote reccs for you. Do make sure you spell their names right. That’s more important on the thank-you letters than on your college recc letters.</p>
<p>Well, of course I’m still sending her a thank you note. She’s been very helpful to me over the last two years, and it’s not like I’m suddenly anti-guidance counselor. Heck, she even offered to trim my bangs once. </p>
<p>Anyways, thanks for the reassurance. That’s one less thing off the stress list.</p>
<p>gofygure: anyone who reads that essay will look at the spellng of your name in 0.05 seconds before they move on to the next word. Do you think that a misspelling of a proper noun is that noticeable?</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, in my two sentences, there’s a misspelling. You probably missed it too.</p>