2018 Blooper Real*

[M(allthevowels)H]

I saw one of these posts from years gone by and felt it to my bones. Here are my whoopsie-daisies:

1. Near miss: I almost deadnamed/misgendered a scholar I want to work with because I read an edition of their book that was published before their transition.

2. Used "conflagration" when I meant "conflation" in two SoPs, even though I know what both mean. I'm from Southern California! I know all the words for fire! But now I look like a dope who tried punching above her vocabulary.

 

*Get it? Reaaaaaaal.

[FreakyFoucault]

I came very close to sending SOPs that referred to James’s Bloom instead of Joyce’s Bloom.  

Not a deadly error, but I’m sure it would’ve earned a laugh or two at my expense in the conference room. 

[M(allthevowels)H]

11 minutes ago, FreakyFoucault said:

I came very close to sending SOPs that referred to James’s Bloom instead of Joyce’s Bloom.  

Not a deadly error, but I’m sure it would’ve earned a laugh or two at my expense in the conference room. 

What? You've never heard of Henry James's botanical work? 

[FreakyFoucault]

2 minutes ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

What? You've never heard of Henry James's botanical work? 

Bahahaha it’s funny that you mention him; when I sent my SoP to my old advisor (after meticulously scrubbing it of errors and being convinced of its perfection), he responded with the following message:

”Didn’t know Henry James also had a ‘Bloom’ character :-P” 

My response: “Buhhhhhhh” 

[mads47]

On one of my SOPs, I ended my last sentence of my last paragraph with a comma....I didn't realize until I was rewriting it for my next school. It's hopefully a forgivable error but I had a flush of mortification when I realized.

[FreakyFoucault]

22 minutes ago, mads47 said:

 

On one of my SOPs, I ended my last sentence of my last paragraph with a comma....

 

Eh, I really don’t think that’s a big deal; it happens to the best of us,

[frenchlover]

In the ONE French word I had on my SOP, I put the wrong accent on the word. Does not bode very well for me lol.

[WildeThing]

I misspelled Charles Chesnutt as Chestnutt in my SoP.

[madamoiselle]

I completely forgot to finish a sentence in one of my apps *stressed smile.* I meant to say that "yada yada yada would be a great honor" and it instead said, "yada yada yada would be a great" and that's all! 

It's a super competitive program (my highest reach) and I wasn't expecting to get in, so I'm just taking the L preemptively. 

[jrockford27]

I sent out a statement that had a subject-verb disagreement in the last paragraph.  This particular school allowed more space, so I took advantage of it to add an extra paragraph about my teaching philosophy (I think that was the reason they had more space than most apps) and that's where it snuck in.  This was the statement I sent to the program I currently attend.  So don't worry, that little mistake isn't going to submarine your whole application!

[JustPoesieAlong]

I know I'll find bloopers galore if I dig, but I'm holding myself back from looking at any of my documents for sanity's sake. 

[ashley623]

In the very first app I submitted (I corrected it before the other five went in, thankfully...) I referred to a character by the wrong name in my lit analysis writing sample.

Twice. 

[chellyfish_]

Agh, I noticed after sending out a handful of apps that I had an entirely wrong YEAR in the CV for the ending date of a teaching gig. Hopefully if it needs to be corrected the mistake will be forgivable, or the mistake is obvious, since I taught elsewhere since "^^

[hats]

Remember: literally everyone who has ever applied to graduate school has had a typo in one of their materials somewhere. I'm sure there are errors bad enough to take people out of the running! That said, if departments only took students who never omitted a word somewhere, every graduate classroom everywhere would be empty.

At about this point in the application process, I recommend this website: https://calmingmanatee.com/

[FreakyFoucault]

1 hour ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

I know I'll find bloopers galore if I dig, but I'm holding myself back from looking at any of my documents for sanity's sake. 

Resist the urge, @JustPoesieAlong! I just re-read the first sentence of the SoP, and my eyes caught on fire! It burns! Man down!!! 

[JustPoesieAlong]

21 minutes ago, FreakyFoucault said:

It burns! Man down!!! 

Time to bust the Jameson out from under the desk! 

[FreakyFoucault]

8 minutes ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

Time to bust the Jameson out from under the desk! 

Bingo! The emergency Jameson is indispensable. 

[unræd]

3 hours ago, hats said:

Remember: literally everyone who has ever applied to graduate school has had a typo in one of their materials somewhere. I'm sure there are errors bad enough to take people out of the running! That said, if departments only took students who never omitted a word somewhere, every graduate classroom everywhere would be empty.

At about this point in the application process, I recommend this website: https://calmingmanatee.com/

A good friend of mine here at Cal got in — both to here and to a range of other schools (Yale, Penn, Columbia, etc) — with no less than five (at least; I don’t remember the actual tally) typos in their SOP. Which is to say: it really, really doesn’t matter!

Still, though: don’t reread your materials. That way madness lies!

[la_mod]

I've got two. One not so bad, one awful:

1. Misspelled an obscure scholar's name wrong in my SOP. I think it'll probably go unnoticed. It wasn't an egregious misspelling or anything, but still a little embarrassing.

2. Sent the WRONG draft of my personal / diversity statement. The first paragraph ends mid-sentence! Ugh! It's super obvious too. It's like "while xyz does" and that's it, or something. I'm not gonna go back and reread it now. Tears have been shed. Luckily it was only for the first two schools I applied to. Unfortunately, one of those schools was my top top choice. Hoping that I'm somehow a good enough candidate that they won't read my diversity statement. 

[punctilious]

Pretty sure that my husband's letter writer spelled husband's last name wrong in his letter, considering he ALWAYS spells it wrong. However, this professor absolutely loves him and is almost over-the-top about how wonderful my husband is, so hopefully that outweighs the error (plus it's always just one letter off and maybe not super noticeable). He also has a tendency to forget what classes of his my husband was actually in, and mixes up which classes I was actually his student in (like I was in a class with him about author 1, my husband was in a class with him about author 2, he is obsessed with both of us, so he decides that we are one person and therefore my husband was in author 1 class as well). Oh well! We love the professor anyway. Haha.

[ltr317]

On 1/12/2018 at 12:15 PM, hats said:

At about this point in the application process, I recommend this website: https://calmingmanatee.com/

 

Great website.  I love manatees.  For some strange reason, watching sloths also calms me down.  

[ProfessionalNerd]

I had spelling errors in my app that I didn't notice until I was helping a friend through their apps this year. I still got into great programs. "Bloopers" freak us out, but good ideas and scholarship still stand out . 

 

Don't worry too much 

Good luck with the app season! 

[mk-8]

2 hours ago, punctilious said:

Pretty sure that my husband's letter writer spelled husband's last name wrong in his letter, considering he ALWAYS spells it wrong. However, this professor absolutely loves him and is almost over-the-top about how wonderful my husband is, so hopefully that outweighs the error (plus it's always just one letter off and maybe not super noticeable). He also has a tendency to forget what classes of his my husband was actually in, and mixes up which classes I was actually his student in (like I was in a class with him about author 1, my husband was in a class with him about author 2, he is obsessed with both of us, so he decides that we are one person and therefore my husband was in author 1 class as well). Oh well! We love the professor anyway. Haha.

For my MA applications, one of my letter writers put the wrong name of the program I currently attend. So, it definitely happens, haha.

[FreakyFoucault]

3 hours ago, punctilious said:

Pretty sure that my husband's letter writer spelled husband's last name wrong in his letter

 

1 hour ago, mk-8 said:

For my MA applications, one of my letter writers put the wrong name of the program I currently attend.

Did you two actually see your letters (or, in @punctilious's case, your husband's)? How'd you find about these little boo-boos? 

[punctilious]

3 minutes ago, FreakyFoucault said:

 

Did you two actually see your letters (or, in @punctilious's case, your husband's)? How'd you find about these little boo-boos? 

His letter writer was having a very hard time submitting to one of the schools, and so the professor had to email the letter to the graduate coordinator. The professor forwarded the email to my husband as confirmation. The letter was actually attached to that email but my husband resisted the urge to read it. However, I think he spelled my husbands name wrong in the email or in the title of the letter.