Really need some suggestion/past experience here: My kid just realized that she forgot to specify what awards she achieved in her honors list. She just listed the names of the competition, such as science Olympia, scholastic art contest. She actually placed 2nd place on 2 of the honors she listed. I think they are good achievements. Should we contact admissions office? Will it make her look bad? After talking to her counselor, she learned that he mentioned one of her achievements in his LOC letter. We feel very upset now. Thank you very much!
It depends on the college - each will have its own policy about updates to the application after submission. Some allow you to make additions and corrections and some don’t. If you can’t find this info on their website (and you often can), you can call the admissions office and ask.
Thank you very much! Checking their website now. Do you think it will look bad because she forgot that information? I heard it is ok to update them if you receive NEW awards after submission.
That also depends on the college (for example, the UCs allow no new information, even new awards, with the reasoning that ultimately they won’t make or break an application at that point). Some are very accommodating, however; my daughter realized she gave the wrong name for an award and called one of the admissions offices at a college she applied to and they couldn’t have been more gracious, saying, “don’t worry about it at all, mistakes happen all the time, we’re all human, we’ll just put a note in your file.”
1 Like
Thanks for sharing your daughter’s experience. This is very comforting. I actually found on their website that applicants can not update their submission, but counselors have till 1/15 to provide update. But I guess it’s for interim grades. Either way, I will have my daughter to contact the college.
It never hurts to call and ask - and if you’re worried it might reflect badly on her (which I don’t think it will at all!), you can call anonymously and just ask the policy.
I had a similar question. I know it’s not a big deal at all but I think I wrote a sentence in one of my supplemental essays that changed the meaning from what I intended… I don’t think it’s too big of a deal but I don’t know if I should call them and ask. I’m afraid it’ll bring even more attention to it when they’ll most likely skim over it. Any thoughts?
As I said above, if you’re worried about how it might look, if you call, you can do so essentially anonymously. You don’t have to give your name, just say “Hello, I recently applied, and this is the situation. Are corrections possible, or do you think this won’t impact the decision?”
Good point! Thank you very much!