<p>No, I did not cheat or anything, I'm actually quite a straight shooter for the most part. I don't ever think of ways to undermine classmates or suchas. But ever since November I've been feeling really guilty about an embellishment on my app, because I submitted without checking hours per week and I feel like crap because I have a fairly good chance at getting into Yale and other ivies (amazing grades, good scores, dec recommendations). Basically I tried to quantify an officer position but couldnt think of how many hours i served as treasurer so I simply put 4 a week, since that's how long the class where I was treasurer lasted. In actuality nobody does a stupid duty for that long, obviously...but I feel as if some ppl might take it literally. It was near the top of my list. </p>
<p>I know it's super trivial to some, to others, a breach of ethics. Say I do get in, how do I deal with it? Am I a freeloader/liar/bad person? </p>
<p>Anyways, I feel terrible. I feel like even if I get into HYP-DPB I shouldn't accept, I feel like there are twentyfold kids more honorable and deserving. I feel like I might as well just enroll in my safety school now.</p>
<p>One position won’t be the make-or-break factor in your application unless you drastically lied about it and the colleges in question find out. However, you should email a Word doc with a brief explanation of your mistake and a correction that includes your Common App ID number so that they can add it to your file. But there’s no need to be overly dramatic about it. Yes, it was a mistake, but you can correct it.</p>
<p>You could have submitted that post in 2 lines; “Hey people, I overstated the amount of hours I spent on an officer position. What should I do? thanks in advance”, yet you chose to write that absolute load of bull. You are a bad bad person…</p>
<p>Just email then. They probably won’t notice/care if you don’t.</p>
<p>And next time you post something, we don’t care about:</p>
<p>“”"
No, I did not cheat or anything, I’m actually quite a straight shooter for the most part. I don’t ever think of ways to undermine classmates or suchas. But ever since November I’ve been feeling really guilty about an embellishment on my app, because I submitted without checking hours per week and I feel like crap because I have a fairly good chance at getting into Yale and other ivies (amazing grades, good scores, dec recommendations).
“”"</p>
<p>I thought the whole hours per week was a pretty bogus question but I understand that they need SOME way of gauging how committed you are to an activity, even though often it’s almost impossible for us to estimate. There were a few that I don’t participate in on a weekly basis (e.g. volunteering for my synagogue’s yearly cabaret fundraiser…the whole process take a few weeks to a month and it’s once a year, that’s it) and some things that don’t make sense to estimate that way, like writing for the school paper. For the ones I don’t participate in weekly, I did my best but for all intents and purposes, I made the numbers up. And I don’t feel guilty at all. That is not the kind of thing that’s going to matter at all, and even if it did, how would they find out anyway? This isn’t that kind of thing that should be keeping you up at night.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, and sorry that I came off sounding like a dick…I agree I’m petty. </p>
<p>Anyways, if I send them this correction, would it be fine to send it with an update of achievements as well? or separately? (I need to do both eventually.) I don’t want to make a bad impression with adcoms if anybody, but I honestly don’t want to let this slide as an “unimportant miscalculation” because I truly do feel bad.</p>
<p>And I send them to the regional admissions officers, correct?</p>
<p>Updates go to <a href=“mailto:apply.questions@yale.edu”>apply.questions@yale.edu</a>. Sending in a correction along with your updates is a good idea - a negative correction standing on its own would look worse than a negative correction with accomplishments mixed in. But honestly, its impact either way is, as far as I can tell, inconsequential. It’s nothing to worry about in the slightest.</p>
<p>I agree with YeloPen. If it makes you feel better, I understated my hours. I thought about e-mailing Yale, but then I was like “it’s not worth e-mailing them over a couple of hours.” In addition, this was the activity I wrote about in the 150 words or less section. They know it means a lot to me regardless of how much time I spend on it.</p>
lol.</p>