2018 Blooper Real*

[khigh]

Not in your field, but I just looked at my writing sample after reading through this.  I have one footnote with question marks instead of the date because I should have looked for a date later. I couldn't remember at the time of writing the paper if it was 1588 or 1589. In another part, I have a whole phrase left untranslated in the body of the paper.  The rest of it looks like this: ..."writing in English." ¹ I really hope they see that the rest is correct, the topic is good, and that my translations are done well. I had reworked part of my paper before I submitted it and it just looks like I oopsed on that part.

1 Footnote or Ibid., The original reads:" ...writing in Early Modern Dutch"

[Yanaka]

2 hours ago, khigh said:

Not in your field, but I just looked at my writing sample after reading through this.  I have one footnote with question marks instead of the date because I should have looked for a date later. I couldn't remember at the time of writing the paper if it was 1588 or 1589. In another part, I have a whole phrase left untranslated in the body of the paper.  The rest of it looks like this: ..."writing in English." ¹ I really hope they see that the rest is correct, the topic is good, and that my translations are done well. I had reworked part of my paper before I submitted it and it just looks like I oopsed on that part.

1 Footnote or Ibid., The original reads:" ...writing in Early Modern Dutch"

I am so sorry that happened to you! Usually I put those notes in bold with plenty of ??????? or !!!!!!!! around them so I don't miss them when I re-read my stuff. I'm so scared of that type of accident...

The only blooper I had (that I know of--talking about form not content) was forgetting to edit out the a school's name in the SOP for a different school... It was a *just take my free money* kind of accident.

I just want to wallow here because I was applying for a summer research grant, and didn't see that I needed a professor's "recommendation." The deadline was today, and nobody answered (understandably, obviously) to write that letter, so I can forget it. That's a big fat stinky blooper for me! I wanted it to help my resume for hypothetical possible eventual other applications or academic/non-academic career...

 

Edited January 21, 2018 by Yanaka

[hats]

Oy @Yanaka, ask the administrator(s) if you can still apply. I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner, because if you didn't press the 'submit' button on your part, it may be too late (you won't lose anything by asking bright and early tomorrow morning, though - send it before business hours open.) For the future, though, One Of Those Things in academia is that letters of recommendation can almost always come in by a later date than your own application. Sometimes it's a flexible kind of later ("oh, within a week or so after the applicants' deadline"); sometimes it's later but really, really not flexible (certain national fellowships will say, applicants September 20, letters September 30, after that it's straight in the garbage). But if it's a funding program through your school, they're more likely to be flexible, since it looks good for them to have their students funded.

[Yanaka]

47 minutes ago, hats said:

Oy @Yanaka, ask the administrator(s) if you can still apply. I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner, because if you didn't press the 'submit' button on your part, it may be too late (you won't lose anything by asking bright and early tomorrow morning, though - send it before business hours open.) For the future, though, One Of Those Things in academia is that letters of recommendation can almost always come in by a later date than your own application. Sometimes it's a flexible kind of later ("oh, within a week or so after the applicants' deadline"); sometimes it's later but really, really not flexible (certain national fellowships will say, applicants September 20, letters September 30, after that it's straight in the garbage). But if it's a funding program through your school, they're more likely to be flexible, since it looks good for them to have their students funded.

The director of our dpt told me that they didn’t give more time even for recommendations, and when the person whom I asked to recommend my project answered this morning, she said it was too short notice. We had been working on it last week, but I guess she didn’t really like where I was getting and didn’t tell me that. 

I tried submitting my proposal anyway in case she was ok to write her rec, but the form asked who would endorse me. I didn’t want to put her name and be in trouble. 

I guess I should just pull my head out of my ass next time.

Thanks for your encouragements, though. I wonder if I should give it a shot. But I don’t know how another professor would write me an endorsement now.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Yanaka

[punctilious]

Just found another fantastic POI at Brown that we never included in the SOP... WHY?! 

[signandsignifiers]

After submitting all of my apps, I was doing research for my senior thesis and I found a book that lined up so close with my interests that it was kind of scary. I looked up the author and, lo and behold, he's faculty at one of the schools I applied to...and I didn't mention him as a poi...

[mk-8]

I presented my writing sample at a conference this weekend and was editing it down Friday night and found like three comma splices. I’m a very ~stylistic~ person so that doesn’t surprise me. 

[CulturalCriminal]

3 hours ago, punctilious said:

Just found another fantastic POI at Brown that we never included in the SOP... WHY?! 

Yep. There are two POIs at UT's AmStudies (waitlisted) that should have been on my SOP. I low-key want to email them and let them know, but that would be really stupid.

 

2 hours ago, mk-8 said:

I presented my writing sample at a conference this weekend and was editing it down Friday night and found like three comma splices. I’m a very ~stylistic~ person so that doesn’t surprise me. 

Not my writing sample, but I presented a paper this weekend and found multiple really stupid errors. Needless to say, I did not win the grad paper award I applied for.

[JustPoesieAlong]

Um, so it looks like I put my husband's number instead of my own on an app because he got a call from someone where I was accepted who wanted to talk more about my work. At least it was a nice call, but doh!

[M(allthevowels)H]

4 hours ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

Um, so it looks like I put my husband's number instead of my own on an app because he got a call from someone where I was accepted who wanted to talk more about my work. At least it was a nice call, but doh!

I don't mean to laugh, but this made me laugh out loud. I'm just picturing my partner - who is in finance and knows only the basics about anything literary - answering the phone to questions about post-humanism or something and it's hilarious.

[JustPoesieAlong]

10 hours ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

I don't mean to laugh, but this made me laugh out loud. I'm just picturing my partner - who is in finance and knows only the basics about anything literary - answering the phone to questions about post-humanism or something and it's hilarious.

Ha! You can definitely laugh; I did! He was even more confused because this person's area code happens to be for the location of another school I'm waiting to hear from. Luckily, she also emailed me, so I'll just respond there. 

[Wabbajack]

Okay... looking back over my SOP, and where I meant to type "British" I typed "Brititish." I just wish my typo didn't sound so dirty. 

[M(allthevowels)H]

31 minutes ago, Wabbajack said:

Okay... looking back over my SOP, and where I meant to type "British" I typed "Brititish." I just wish my typo didn't sound so dirty. 

That...is...hilarious. On the upside, three acceptances means they're into it 

[EspritHabile]

49 minutes ago, Wabbajack said:

Okay... looking back over my SOP, and where I meant to type "British" I typed "Brititish." I just wish my typo didn't sound so dirty. 

Oh my god. I would have been mortitified. 

 

Really though, typos like that often go unnoticed. Remember this? https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/

[Wabbajack]

1 hour ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

That...is...hilarious. On the upside, three acceptances means they're into it 

Hahaha, just remember me when it goes main stream.

54 minutes ago, EspritHabile said:

Oh my god. I would have been mortitified. 

 

Really though, typos like that often go unnoticed. Remember this? https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/

Yessss. I seriously have no idea how I my brain ignored the squiggly read line during my countless proof readings. I blame never adding my weird name or academics word to Word's dictionary. I think I've just learn to ignore the red squiggle.

[JustPoesieAlong]

19 hours ago, M(allthevowels)H said:

where I meant to type "British" I typed "Brititish."

All that green in your signature suggests they either didn't catch it, didn't care, or...enjoyed it!  

I've been avoiding admitting this one, but I had recently added a signature to my email that includes the name of the university where I work (which also happens to be the university where I got my MA), and only realized I had switched some letters in the middle after, you know, extensive email exchanges with my POIs. Praying that no one noticed, but oh my god. 

[Wabbajack]

8 hours ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

All that green in your signature suggests they either didn't catch it, didn't care, or...enjoyed it!  

I've been avoiding admitting this one, but I had recently added a signature to my email that includes the name of the university where I work (which also happens to be the university where I got my MA), and only realized I had switched some letters in the middle after, you know, extensive email exchanges with my POIs. Praying that no one noticed, but oh my god. 

Haha, I realllllyyyy doubt they noticed. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I certainly don't pay that much attention to email signatures. 

I'm unsuccessfully trying not to imagine each admission committee pronouncing "Brititsh" and laughing at me in a circle of judgement. But like you said, they ultimately didn't mind too much...or kinda dug it--even if they did laugh at me. Take heart fellow typoer! 

[Warelin]

@WabbajackI read your British typo and read it as meaning kind of/ sort of British.

[Wabbajack]

13 hours ago, Warelin said:

@WabbajackI read your British typo and read it as meaning kind of/ sort of British.

Yeah... that's totally.... what it means.... obviously  

[toxicmoss]

Not really an application-debilitating typo but a personal typo happened when I was trying to select which of my papers I wanted to use for my writing sample. The criteria for one of the schools was 'a 10-12 page paper written for a literature class' or something of the sort. My reaction: "is comparative literature class a literature class?"

[LexHex]

I just found out that I sent a Statement of Purpose fully addressed to University A (and mentioning specific professors and conversations I've had) to University B and uploaded it as my writing sample. They are letting me resubmit, but OH MY GOD.

[killerbunny]

Lurker here. When the last list of MacArthur "Genius Grants" was announced, I found a proposal or statement written by one of the winners. Curious to read something that garnered such a prestigious and generous award, I began reading it and came across a glaring typo in the first sentence. Seeing that certainly eased my paranoia about my own SOPs. 

[Melvillage_Idiot]

So, I have a visit with one of my two top picks next week, and I was talking over some things with the graduate coordinator there when she asked me to reaffirm some of my faculty interests. I looked back at who I'd mentioned in my SOP and flipped to their faculty pages...only to discover that I not only don't remember ever even looking at one of the professors there, but his interests are in an area I know absolutely nothing about! Now I'm really trying to steer myself into meeting with some other faculty members, because Lord knows I'd look a fool in that guy's office.

[Oklash]

When sending the letter of recommendation request, I almost addressed it to a "Daniel" instead of "David." 

Edited March 1, 2018 by Oklash

[M(allthevowels)H]

23 hours ago, LexHex said:

I just found out that I sent a Statement of Purpose fully addressed to University A (and mentioning specific professors and conversations I've had) to University B and uploaded it as my writing sample. They are letting me resubmit, but OH MY GOD.

oof. A moment of gratitude for resubmissions!

6 minutes ago, Oklash said:

When sending the letter of recommendation, I almost addressed it to a "Daniel" instead of "David." 

I almost did this! With a Tim/Tom.