My Nightmare

Parents Forum
1

<p>This one is a doozy.</p>

<p>With the economic news getting more terrifying every day, I decided that D, who had already submitted all her college apps, needed to toss in an application to our state flagship as a "financial safety". All the others had been done on the Common App., but the state school doesn't use it. D cut and pasted her Common App essay into the state app, which had its own spellcheck function--only to discover three misspellings!!!!!</p>

<p>In trying to figure out how this happened, D recalled she had done the final revisions of her essay on my computer, since her desktop, on its last legs, was having one of its more problematic days. I have Word's automatic spellcheck function turned off, because I find the underlinings distracting and prefer to run a check when I've completed a piece of writing. D didn't realize this, and assumed everything was fine when no underlinings appeared. I must have proofread her essay a dozen times in its various iterations, but either didn't look that one last time after she did her final edit, or just didn't spot the errors (which I really doubt). D has ADHD and is admittedly not adequately attentive to tasks like proofreading. The errors were simply typos-she can spell all three words just fine.</p>

<p>Of course I'm just heartbroken. I can't imagine that any admission officer will notice these errors without concluding that D is fatally careless. I think her blighted essay may totally knock her out of contention at her reaches and could be an problem at her matches. All the effort put into test prep, schoolwork, extracurriculars and the applications themselves now seem to be wasted. How ironic that the only school that received an unblemished essay is the state school that is a total safety for her!</p>

<p>D's guidance counselor suggested that she email the corrected essay to each college with the explanation that she had mistakenly sent in a draft (which she feels is easier to explain than the spellcheck glitch). Setting aside the issue of whether this is any more than a little white lie, I'm trying to determine if sending in the corrected version makes sense. The recommended explanation sounds terribly lame to me (and only emphasizes D's carelessness), and I wonder if the process will only draw attention to errors that maybe, just maybe, would have been otherwise overlooked by an admissions officer caught up in the substance of the essay. I keep thinking that I know plenty of very intelligent and well-educated people who are terrible spellers and wouldn't recognize a spelling error if it bit them. Perhaps some of their kind have become admissions officers!</p>

<p>So, fellow CC'ers the questions are, 1) does D send in the corrected essay, 2) if so, what explanation does she offer, and 3) when do you think I'll stop banging my head against the wall?</p>

2

<p>I think whatever you do will be fine. If she's applying to Yale or something the spelling errors could hurt, but that's a long shot for anyone. And maybe the spelling errors give her essay that "genuine" look, like no one else but the applicant had input, which is what its supposed to be! My daughter messed up her application to one school and the admissions people were very nice about letting her resubmit. Her only explanation was that "I made a mistake, but I really want to go to this school so please let me redo it."</p>

3

<p>stop banging my head against the wall now, or go to your rubber room. If this is your nightmare, I want your life. So now It's time to laugh and enjoy your D because this is just real life.</p>

4

<p>Relax. On re-reading my essays and forms after receiving all my decisions, I was surprised to discover grammatical/expression errors - even an instance of not following specific instructions (never capitalized my last name). I still did alright =p.</p>

5

<p>Oh, you might want to search for "clam fart" in the forums. That error was much more egregious and the student was still admitted to Yale.</p>

6

<p>My daughter had at least one misspelling on her common app (she made changes to her resume on the fly) and it doesn't seem to have made any difference in her acceptances thus far.</p>

<p>I wouldn't sweat it.</p>

7

<p>My (ex)H mis-spelled medicine throughout his med school applications and got in to every school he applied to! (and he was an English major!!!)</p>

<p>Relax . . . it will probably be ok.</p>

8

<p>If I were your daughter, I would probably send a copy of the essay printed out on nice paper to the admissions offices with a note saying "Please replace the essay I sent in with this version; I inadvertently submitted an earlier version of the essay with three typographical errors" or something like that. I really don't know if this is a good idea or not, but it would be driving me crazy too, and I would feel I had to do something.</p>

9

<p>Thanks frankchn. That was pretty funny. From a post in 2004. The student was fooling around and forgot to delete this from his application to Yale:</p>

<p>----Practicing clam fart techniques for the last 17 years has been extremely rewarding; it has provided substantial socioeconomic stability for my family and I, in addition to being a rather enjoyable pastime. When I asked myself, "What is the epitome of a Yale student?," I answered "Clam fart." I can only hope that you answer the same. ----</p>

10

<p>MommaJ, I can sympathize! We had the same problem here and I will tell you how we handled it. My son applied early to our state university (which is a great school but also his safety) and that night while I was putting away all the copies of the app in his file I noticed 2 spelling errors. I pointed this out to my son the next morning and he phoned the school and was honest and said that he had noticed 2 spelling errors after submitting the application. The admissions rep was very understanding and said that they get thousands of apps many with errors and not to worry about it, that they wouldn't hold it against him. My son insisted that it was not they way he wanted his essay to be and asked what the procedure was to send in a corrected essay. She told him to draft a letter explaining that he wanted the essay he submitted replaced with the new version, to mention that the change was do to a spelling error and to mail or fax asap. He chose to mail the change, figuring that a faxed copy may look lousy. He applied EA 2 days before the admission deadline of 12/1. He received a letter of acceptance with a merit scholarship 2 weeks later. We debated about all the things that ran through your mind, maybe we should just ignore it and they won't notice etc. In the end, my son thought it was in his best interest to have his application essay be the way he intended it to be. I will say for him spellcheck never picked up the error as the misspelling was a real word however, when you read the essay with the error it made no sense. My husband, son and I read the essay countless times and none of us picked it up (the other error was a misplaced comma, not spelling). I will tell you that my son had another error on his Boston College app. in the additional comments section of the CA. He mispelled "graduated" as "guaduated". He chose not to correct this error for whatever reason and again we all missed that error while rereading the app before submission. He thought that to have an error in an essay was worse than a one line additional comment. I doubt that error alone would keep him from getting accepted. Do what will make you feel at ease. Realize they are 18 year olds with alot on their plates and errors happen. If the error changes the meaning of what your daughter was trying to say in her essay, I would call the school and ask how you can ammend the application. Good Luck to all of you.</p>

11

<p>Heah, at least it will show she wrote her own essay without parental or professional review.</p>

12

<p>Maybe if my son had been HYPS material and I was tortured by the fact that a single typo might rule out his chances I would do something. </p>

<p>I found a typo in one of Son's Common App supplements. Two things gave me comfort: 1) I had proofed the supplement twice before he hit the send button and didn't see it. The eye "corrects" many typos, so I thought the reader might just miss it too. (Hopefully they are reading for content and not for an English class composition grade.) 2) The typo was Son's work product. I guess it showed a slight degree of carelessness, which is undeniable. If that kept him out, so be it.</p>

13

<p>At our welcoming lunch my freshman year of college, the head of admissions gave us numbers on how many of us spelled 3 words wrong:
intramural (is that how you spell it? I still don't know!)
extra-curriculars
THE NAME OF THE COLLEGE!
And yet we all got in....</p>

<p>That said, sending a printed version with the "please replace, I inadvertently attached a draft with some typo's" is probably a good idea, but don't make a huge deal about it. And after that, try to relax! (I know, I'm a perfectionist, I'd be flipping out too!)</p>

14

<p>Oh this would be something <em>I</em> would do (or my child). Seriously. I just don't have attention to detail. You can see it in the posts I post. Maybe even this one. I may have a PhD and do a lot of writing for a living (for which I've won numerous awards I might add!), but oh the stupid mistakes I make. Most I can't even fix. </p>

<p>Despite my many blunders, I have yet to see how it's impacted me: from 3 great schools for my education, to teaching at an Ivy and so forth. I'm so bad, I can't even look at my own articles after they come out as I'm afraid I'll see the errors I made now (oddly, many journal and book copy editors seem to miss my stupid mistakes too!).</p>

<p>Maybe I'm rationalizing myself here, but some of the most brilliant, creative, accomplished people I've known in my career make typos! And silly grammar errors too! </p>

<p>So I'm going to guess that
a) they won't notice
b) if they do, they are likely to just chalk it up to what is really common if they do and
c) if your child is that great and has spent years becoming the amazing overcheiver and accomplished person they are to get into X, and really belong at X and would have got in, BUT they were sent to the reject pile because of 3 typos, do you really want to go to that school?</p>

15

<p>Let it go. The errors are authentic. It's OK.</p>

<p>S1 listed his dad's job as "faceless bureaucrat" on the application to our state flagship (financial and academic safety). S1 and I both looked at the app before he submitted it (he was a copy editor for his school paper; I write for a living!). After hyperventilating for about two minutes, I concluded that the admissions office needed all the laughs it could get, and that maybe THIS would be what made him a memorable candidate.</p>

<p>He was accepted and offered a fabulous merit package.</p>

16

<p>Most public universities don't pay that much attention to essays anyway. They basically admit students on the basis of stats and state of residence.</p>

<p>Also, admissions officers aren't copy editors. They aren't scrutinizing essays looking for typos. Given the amount of essays they have to read, they are speed reading just to get a general sense of who your kid is.</p>

<p>I agree with the person who suggests that if this is what you call a nightmare, you live a charmed life indeed.</p>

17

<p>lafalum84 - congrats on 1000 posts!</p>

18

<p>Of course this is trivial in my life as a whole, but in the context of D's hard work perfecting her applications and the comfortable feeling of accomplishment that settled in after they'd all been completed, it's pretty darn nightmarish to stumble upon 3 stupid errors after the fact. </p>

<p>Tomorrow looks to be a snow day, so D will have time to call the admissions offices anonymously to see what they say about the possibility of submitting a corrected essay. In all the chaos that must be going on in admissions offices now, I wonder if it would ever find its way into her files anyway.</p>

<p>I'll offer some essay advice based on this experience: Find a final proofreader who has never seen the essay before. I think we all lose the ability to spot errors after we've dithered with endless iterations.</p>

19

<p>In all honestly, her having 3 typos is not a big deal. Very few people can copy edit. I've taught copy editing. It is very hard work. I doubt that admissions officers will notice her errors at all. It's not worth worrying about. She's applying to college, not taking a test to discern whether she should be hired as a copy editor. Probably most applications -- including those of students who are accepted to top colleges -- have some typos on them.</p>

20

<p>Everyone has errors in their essays. a similar thing happened to me last year--i was sending the application into a safety that didn't use common app (after i had already submitted it to other schools) and noticed an error where i had made a word possessive when it shouldn't have been (not originally a mistake, but then i switched my wording around and forgot to fix it.) so there was a random 's in my essay. i freaked out for a few days and then read things all over CC about people submitting with errors and still getting into their top schools. And it worked for me. I was waitlisted at one school (which i had actually fixed the application for as well) and accepted at the others. </p>

<p>If you didn't notice the errors then chances are the adcoms won't notice it either. And what other people are saying about HPYSM type schools that could care, they also know that people make mistakes. I was accepted to both harvard and yale with a typo in my essay. so don't beat yourself up about it. Chances are your daughter will not get into every school she applied to (most don't) but that could be for a variety of reasons. I don't believe these typos undid all of her hard work.</p>