<p>Crap... so I'm the kind of guy to check and re-check everything, and that's what I did before I submitted my Common App to Stanford's EA a couple months ago.
However, in the online form of the Common App, I use a dash in my Short Answer, but when I checked the .pdf form of the Common App (the one that is available at the "Signature" page), I noticed that the dash became "" instead.</p>
<p>Now I'm freaking out cause I know that even though some colleges don't care too much about typos, Ivies and other top schools throw apps away right on the spot if they have typos. What should I do?</p>
<p>Here's what it looks like online: "The students initially did what kids do bestrun around and pay no heed."<br>
Here's what it looks like on the .pdf form: "The students initially did what kids do bestrun around and pay no heed."</p>
<p>I already submitted to my top three (Harvard, Stanford, and Yale) and to Dartmouth. I was thinking of remaking my account for my other colleges, but is there anything I can do for those four?</p>
<p>That sucks. That’s a pretty awkward looking typo, probably sticks out like a sore thumb :(. I don’t think you can do much for those 4 colleges except email your regional director to put a note on the application intending what you meant to write (that is what I did).</p>
<p>Don’t sweat it too much. I had 2 typos in my app. and I was freaking out about it, but it all worked out in the end.</p>
<p>I had a typo in my Georgetown app. I wrote “to” where I obviously meant “too,” and I was accepted EA. Don’t stress. It doesn’t look like the typical didn’t proofread mistake, it’s not a their/they’re/there issue or a misspelling. It looks like a computer glitch. As in, it looks less like your fault that a normal typo, so you should worry even less than one would for some sort of complement/compliment mistake.</p>
<p>In regards to the typo = auto reject at Harvard, I googled with the constraint that all results be from Harvard’s website, and could only find that Harvard advised its law students to be careful about typos on their job applications but, even there, Harvard said people would probably be understanding.
As for college apps, Harvard said nothing, but I’d assume its thoughts are similar to other top colleges. One of the few perspectives I could find was MIT’s:</p>
<p>i made the same typo, which completely ruined the impact of the statement it was in. it’s frustrating because, unlike a misplaced letter, a big S in the middle of two words looks utterly ridiculous.</p>
<p>i still think you and i will be okay, though at least i hope we’ll be okay. who needs harvard, princeton, and pomona anyway, right? </p>
<p>I made the same mistake (can’t remember to which schools). Oh well. They’ll know that I’m human and make mistakes. And they’ll just overlook it, and won’t reject me on the basis of that alone (though I’m likely to be rejected anyway haha).</p>
<p>It’s probably a formatting error that they see in a lot of people’s essays that use a “—” (made when the .doc is made a .pdf), so they’re probably aware of what it’s supposed to be and will read it that way.</p>
<p>Unless you purposefully typed that S in there, you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>BTW, if anyone discovers they made a typo on the initial application, it’s very easy to make alternate versions on the common app. Go to Help and scroll down to find out how to make alternates.</p>
<p>I used subways instead of subway. Like even though it might look weird in the sentence, it IS possible that the word subways makes sense in the context of the sentence.</p>
at least i hope we’ll be okay. who needs harvard, princeton, and pomona anyway, right? </p>