<p>Some of these would appear to be rather obvious, but in the midst of the overwhelming and stressful college application process details can be overlooked! However, I do hope none of you have spelled your name wrong :)</p>
<p>When I applied, I actually had no idea that the admissions officers only have access to the PDF. All three of my essays for Stanford were cut off in the preview. Not sure why I was still accepted …</p>
<p>Really make sure you triple check the term you are applying for before hitting the submit button on the common ap. </p>
<p>My son very carefully made sure to click RD but he mistakenly checked the box for spring RD instead of fall RD. Luckily, the next day when we were checking to see if the school had downloaded his app we saw the deadline date was wrong and emailed the school to change it.</p>
<p>I made the mistake of applying with a mobile me email when I didn’t realize my mobile me account was expiring a few weeks after applications were due, and it would cost me 100$ to renew the account, including the email…thaaaat was fun to deal with.</p>
<p>I copied and pasted my Texas A&M essay to my University of Texas essay, and I didn’t remove the Texas A&M from the essay. Epic fail… >:^(</p>
<p>do people just never reread their applications? i ran through my common app and all of my supplements print preview at least 5 times myself and had my father check them as well. i’m still worried i accidentally made a mistake!</p>
<p>What I recommend is that even after you think it all looks good on the screen, print out the preview (good for you to have a paper copy) because you will be surprised what pops out that you didn’t see.</p>
<p>I would also recommend having someone other than yourself proofread your essays, activities list, etc. for spelling errors and typos. We can be our own worst proofreaders, so it is always good to have another set of capable eyes looking at our work if possible.</p>
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Definitely, I would’ve expected people to take their college applications more seriously. I checked my applications about 10 times and let other people look over it as well.</p>
<p>I forgot to indent the paragraphs in my Towson U essay :(</p>
<p>Spell everything correctly. For example, if you want to get into Harvard, it’s good to spell the state that it resides in properly…</p>
<p>One of my friends, a smart guy, nearly submitted his “Standford” application because of too much caffeine, too many late nights, and not enough proofreading. </p>
<p>I avoided this mistake while applying, but mispelled my professor’s name on my Econ midterm paper my freshmen year; the TA circled it when she handed it back, and basically laughed at me.</p>
<p>Definitely. Get a friend/trusted teacher/parent to proofread one last time. By the time your essay is off the ground, you will have read/re-read it so many times, it would be easy to overlook a small mistake…</p>
<p>1) Lying on your application (listing clubs, ECA’s you didn’t actually belong to).
2) Exaggerating your role in what you list on the resume.
3) Not having someone else proof-read before submitting.</p>
<p>Not that I would ever consider doing it, but do colleges actually check to make sure you were in certain clubs?
It seems like the task would be much too laborious.</p>
<p>I would imagine they periodically do check. Like spot checking. Or if a student indicates time amounts and activities in a club that that doesn’t sound right.</p>
<p>I know at least some do. I had to verify that I actually received some award (lucky I kept a copy of it).</p>
<p>I found out I misreported my GPA on the common application by 0.01. It is actually 0.01 higher than what I reported, though, so the colleges shouldn’t think I was being dishonest on purpose.</p>
<p>I think a .01 disparity would be considered pretty immaterial either way.</p>
<p>Edit:
Okay, they might consider it a little funny if it were 4.01 unweighted.</p>
<p>If a college finds out you exaggerated an accomplishment or never actually participated in ECA’s you list on your resume, they will most likely turn down your application. Some colleges do spot check or ask you to verify things you are listing.</p>
<p>I can add one extra mistake- to get service (or actually no service for $2000) with CAA, LLC.</p>