I got a panicked email this week from a reader who’d just found an error in her Common App essay that she’d already submitted to her colleges. She wondered how much this would hurt her chances and was hoping for some words of encouragement.
First, while errors are never good, it’s important to understand that no college admissions officer is going to reject you because you mistakenly used “roll” instead of “role” in one sentence of one essay (that wasn’t her error, but it was like that). There’s a difference between being careless and making one honest albeit embarrassing mistake. You’re not a lawyer representing Exxon Mobil here—you’re a seventeen-year-old kid writing a college essay about basketball. Relax.
But if in your mad rush to meet the deadlines you missed several typos, or you mistakenly told Duke how much you’d love to attend NYU, or you have a string of sentences cobbled together from other essays that you mistakenly pasted in the wrong order and now make absolutely no sense, it’s worth doing something about it.
If you’re in that situation, mail a hard copy of your corrected application or essay to the admissions office(s) with a cover letter asking them to replace the current version with the enclosed copy. Sign the letter with your full name and social security number. Be brief (no long explanation necessary) and courteous. If they haven't read, evaluated and decided on your file yet, they'll usually happily replace materials.
Do not use this as an excuse to second guess everything you’ve sent so you go can go back to the drawing board and write new essays or answer application questions differently. Once the deadline has passed, the opportunity to rethink your approach is over, and it’s time to move on. The course of action I’m describing above is appropriate to correct potentially embarrassing mistakes, not to submit what you think are new-and-improved versions of your application materials (parents, especially, should read that last sentence). And don’t send repeated requests to colleges to update your file with continuously revised materials. There is no busier time in most college admissions offices than right now, and they won’t appreciate a student who needed three rounds of revisions after the deadline to get your essay right.
The pressure of college admissions can make you feel like one mistake in an application will seal your rejection and doom you to a life living in your parents’ basement. But sometimes those mistakes happen even to the best kids. Don’t beat yourself up and please don’t worry too much about it. Correct it if you can, but remember that college admissions officers are in the business of evaluating 17-year-olds. They expect you to take this seriously, but they don’t expect you to be perfect all the time.