We paid for an outside college counselor to help my HS senior navigate the entire college application process, everything from soup to nuts. Although we were peripherally involved, reading essays, giving our opinion, etc, mostly everything was done without our help or input. We have no access to DD’s portals and feel they should be her business. She was denied by her ED1 but has since gotten 4 acceptances. She recently sent out her ED2 and is now working on scholarship applications. It was only today when she went on to her Common App to grab her essay for a scholarship she is working on she noticed the essay prompt was incorrect. So although her essay was submitted correctly the College Counselor did not change or remind my DD to change the essay prompt. DD had originally answered a different prompt, wasn’t happy with her final product and decided to answer a different question, this was all done through the college counselor. Even if this was my DD’s responsibility, the college counselor looked it over with my DD before hitting submit. This is what the college counselor does for a living, shouldn’t they have caught it? When my DD reached out to the counselor today asking them what the repercussions would be the counselors response was “Not to sweat it, admissions counselors don’t really read the prompts, they read the essays. The prompts are to help the student come up with essay ideas” My opinion is if its visible on the Common App and you put a check next to the prompt you are using, it is important to have the correct prompt marked. Isn’t this showing attention to detail? Are there any admission counselors out there that might be able to share their insight? Can this be changed if all her Common Apps have been submitted? Thoughts on if this is something we should address with the college counselor or are we making a mountain out a molehill?
So I don’t have any sources or credibility or anything to back my claims but as someone who just applied to their last college, I feel like your D’s college counselor is kinda right. It really is just the personal statement they are looking at. Yes, it shows a bit of carelessness if you answered the wrong prompt and schools that can build equally strong classes from the reject pile (this is mainly ivies and t10s) will be looking for any excuse to not admit (it isn’t because they don’t want you, they do, but when there are too many qualified applicants they have to find someway of reducing the pile).
It’s probably ok.
Just to be clear…the essay is a supplemental one for a scholarship for a specific school? Or are you talking about the common app essay?
It could be helpful to know the school (if a supplemental), but there’s not much to do about it now…you can’t change/resubmit thru the CA, and this would not be something to contact the AO about because I doubt they will even notice a mismatch when they read the essay.
Good luck to your D, tell her not to sweat this.
Maybe you can ask Sally on this forum to see if she has an opinion -
Mwfan1921 it was for the common app essay
Thx for clarifying…that won’t be a problem. I doubt any reader will notice anything, besides so many essays could fit a number of the CA prompts anyway!
Good luck.
Agree that it’s not likely a big deal. Plus sometimes the essay can fit more than one prompt.
I would agree with the above statements. It’s probably not a big deal. Worst case, if you really felt the need, you could email the college and let them know that the wrong prompt was accidentally selected.