Nearly all of our counselors who worked as admissions officers have mentioned that they would often read applications or essays in which nothing was capitalized. Or they’d receive emails from applicants written like text messages—no punctuation, capitalization or even complete sentences. And some emails were written in ALL CAPS (always a bad idea unless you want the person to feel like you’re shouting at them).
Yesterday, Shanta’ put this in context for me with this question for students—is that what you’d want up on a screen in front of an admissions committee?
Now that so many applications are electronic, it’s not uncommon for your application, essay, or even your email message (if it was about something relevant that required admissions discussion) to be projected onto the wall during committee meetings so that everyone can read what’s being discussed. It’s greener and more efficient than making copies of each item. And the projection on the wall never boded well for those applicants who wrote applications like text messages, especially on those days when a professor would join the committee.
Admissions officers aren’t out to get you. A typo or a misuse of an apostrophe isn’t something that’s going to sink your admissions chances. And a student who speaks English as a second language may not write as eloquently as others in the pool. Nobody’s looking to be unfairly critical of those teenage applicants who are trying their best to get it right.
But when you fundamentally ignore the rules of grammar and punctuation—in a college application—it’s the educational equivalent of committing a flagrant foul in sports. You knew the rules, you ignored them, and you’re essentially telling the people in charge, “I don’t care.”
Some rules of written communication are changing (texting and emailing just-get-the-point-across messages is a more accepted practice than it used to be). But the rules of spelling, grammar and punctuation are still the same. So when you write to someone, consider the audience. Your counselor, teacher, college admissions officer, letter of rec writer, or boss is a lot more likely to care about the formal rules than your best friend or sibling is. And when in doubt, go old school and follow the rules. You’re never going to look bad for writing correctly.