<p>I was just wondering..</p>
<p>what happens if I had a typo in my essay? It wasn't an intentional thing, but the grammar is a bit off for 1 word of the essay, and I recalled reading somewhere that an admissions officer immediately rejected someone for having a typo. Am I right to start freaking out?!</p>
<p>College admissions will deny you based off of 1 word in one of 30 sentences in 1 of 3-5 essays out of your whole application.</p>
<p>They really couldn’t care less if it isn’t a consistant pattern throughout your essays.</p>
<p>Freaking out is unnecessary. Happens all the time.</p>
<p>I wish you luck and all, but if, heaven forbid, you don’t get into Penn, it won’t be because of this typo. (As competitive as Penn is, there may be no good reason at all why you don’t get in, but even then, it won’t be the case that a single typo that kept you out.)</p>
<p>I’m just basing it off an AMA a college admissions officer at one of the ivy’s did a couple years back. When asked, “What is the most common reason you reject a student?”, he replied, “If there is a typo. If only these people would learn to proofread. It’s so easy to dump it and go to the next one.” ):</p>
<p>Well, we’ll find out Thursday, hmm? :p</p>
<p>Joking aside, I do agree with Sikorsky. I’d also like to point out a typo (e.g. ‘theres’ instead of 'there’s) is radically different from a grammatical mistake (e.g. a dangling modifier). Personally, I’d think admissions officers would be harsher on the typos than they would be on grammar. </p>
<p>I also had a weird flub in my supplement–not a typo, a wording issue–but I doubt it’ll make or break my app.</p>
<p>I don’t expect them to be reading them intensely, so I would say if it breaks the flow of the essay to the point someone would have to double back to reread something, then you are in trouble.</p>
<p>In my Franklin essay, I wrote “I would have rather listen” instead of “I would have rather listened.” I don’t think it’s very noticeable unless the reader were analyzing it meticulously, but the single mistake was in the first paragraph… I would hate if my life were changed because I didn’t use a participle.</p>
<p>^i think it also goes along with how good your writing was overall. If it stank completely, then a typo like that might be the cherry on top of a crappy essay ice cream sundae. However, if you wrote a good essay, then they would most likely overlook an insignificant mistake like that, since it doesn’t take away from the meaning of your essay.</p>
<p>I sent all my essays to my school’s Ivy expert and she said that she’s always had some sort of criticism for essays of students that have gone to Ivy schools until she read my essays. I love my essays, so hopefully this one mistake won’t change anything.</p>
<p>so modest!</p>
<p>“I’m so amazingly humble.”</p>
<p>They are usually reading the essays fairly fast…in which case it’s hard to notice tiny mistakes. When reading fast, the mind more so understands what is being said rather than the words written. If you have several mistakes, this is a different story.</p>
<p>
Because yours were beyond help. [Ba-dump-bump] :p</p>
<p>^ only part of your message was displayed on my phone, so wasn’t sure if you were sarcastically replying to my sarcastic message, or you were just being that guy.</p>
<p>^ Have you seen the whole post now, or do I need to explain it to you? ;)</p>
<p>I got it now. Everyone knows I’m the most modest, humble guy on here :p</p>
<p>I doubt they will deny you for a typo. It happens. You are totally human.</p>