I just noticed that I had one grammatical error in the essay that I sent to all of my colleges: I used the phrase “had an astronomical affect” instead of “had an astronomical effect.” I am very concerned about how this will impact my admission decisions, does anyone have any experience with this type of thing or have any general knowledge.
I am applying to:
UCLA
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
USC
NYU
George Washington University
Boston University
Syracuse University
Kenyon College
haha no worries.
for schools like UCs and NYU where they get literally 30k applicants (NYU with its storming 60k this year), they aren’t even gonna read the essays word to words. they’re most likely just going to skim through it. And they’re very likely to be bother with that one grammatical error or even noticed it. you’re fine i promise, one word won’t get you out
@snoogleki, they will read every word. They will scrutinize it. The system will scale for the applicants. It’s not like with every additional applicant, the one poor admissions clerk gets proportionately less time to go through that stack of 60,000 applicants.
However, especially with the way computers change words with no warning, they will overlook the odd typographical error. If your application is riddled with carelessness, it will be noticed. But an occasional error, or a systematic error that is minor (then/than, effect/affect, etc.) will not get you “admissions demerits!”
I often even find spelling/grammatical errors on official college websites and it seems funny to me because the website is supposed to be top-notch professional level, yet there seems to be the occasional misspell here and there. Considering that, you should undoubtedly be fine.
@International95 Thanks for the response. Although I must say, you haven’t even read the entire sentence from which the excerpt originated, let alone the entire essay. Given your lack of context, and the fact that you’re not an admissions officer, that last piece of criticism could not have been more useless and gratuitous.
I do not need context to say what sounds strange/contrived. So you’re saying that only admission officers can give criticism? Did you get anyone to read your essay, then?
@International95 Yes, you do need context to determine what sounds contrived. The reason why your criticism is unwarranted is because I didn’t ask what you thought about the sentence, just about how the error would affect my admission decision. I got 5 people to read it. Two of these people were college professors - one from Northwestern, the other from Drexel - and one of them is currently attending Duke on a full ride scholarship.
‘you do need context to determine what sounds contrived’ This is a matter of opinion. You will get ‘unwarranted criticism’ all of your life – get used to it. Professors don’t necessarily give advice that is suitable for impressing admissions officers.
These two words are very often misused. Not too much of a big deal unless you have a reader who is a stickler! But going forward, everyone should know how to use these words correctly.
In most situations, affect is used as a verb, and effect is used as a noun. However, both words have alternate meanings when used as different parts of speech.