Feeling very, very silly

[lalalacereza]

I put my birth year down as 2007 in my application.

That was dumb. Another reason to be paranoid...

[rising_star]

awww... can you call and correct it? or maybe send something? i bet they won't really notice though.

[amanda1655]

I think you'll be fine.

I sent Michigan a resume with Wisconsin's name on it. I realized it shortly after I submitted the app and called the grad secretary who fixed it. I was freaking out for weeks but in the end, Michigan still admitted me.

The only place where you might have a problem is a place like Princeton where they use your b-day to track your app.

[grifter]

Don't sweat this...

related story, similar to the one above: a friend of mine applied to Law programs last year, and after sending his SOP to Cornell, he read through it, and found that in one portion, he referred to Duke as the school to which he was applying. He was still admitted.

[nertperson]

I can't even tell you how many mistakes I made on my apps. None of them mattered.

[lalalacereza]

It didn't matter in the end

[FastForward]

congrats lalala ! i can hear you sigh

[erikw]

I had far worse typos in my apps. In one of my essays the word hitch ended up as b**** and makeshift became makeshit. Needless to say I am still deeply mortified.

[missycari]

I think that's a pretty common mistake to make. It's so easy to do. I'm pretty sure that on one of my apps, I was so used to typing my birthday that I typed my birthday for the date with my signature. It worked out all right in the end. :-)

[polisciapp]

Don't sweat this...

related story, similar to the one above: a friend of mine applied to Law programs last year, and after sending his SOP to Cornell, he read through it, and found that in one portion, he referred to Duke as the school to which he was applying. He was still admitted.

Law school is completely different than grad school. No one in adcoms actually reads those personal statements. All they do is look at your LSAT and GPA.

[solitude87]

I had far worse typos in my apps. In one of my essays the word hitch ended up as b**** and makeshift became makeshit. Needless to say I am still deeply mortified.

I gotta LOL at this. I understand you. Sometimes I blame it on microsoft being stupid at recognizing words even though it's my fault......la la lalaaa

[anese]

ha my NYU app was filled with typos, when I do my PhD apps I won't mention the other schools I am applying to---but when I looked back at my NYU app I had referred to Columbia University as University of Columbia, and I had forgotten punctuation marks, mispelled simple words, etc...My only saving grace was my SOP, which atleast (I am not ashamed to admit) was stellar.

I honestly think that is what saved my butt.

[jonhenry]

Last year I wrote to a Duke prof. and told him I was interested in studying with him at WashU.

[polisci09]

In my personal statement (which I put in the mail for my top choice school yesterday) I mention how fascinated I was in high school by the Bush V. Gore 2004 decision...problem is...I was in seventh grade for the Bush v. Gore decision...and it was in 2000. Kicker: one of my research interests is judicial politics.

and yes I have been having panic attacks since I realized this error last night.

[Tam]

I put my first and last names in the wrong slots on my University of Florida application. So I feel your pain.

[Anita]

I spent two days completely, obsessively rewriting my SOP for TAMU. Then I sent it away, and while recycling it for another school I discovered that toward the end I said I really wanted to go to "Texas T&M". FML.

[jacib]

On 1/15/2010 at 2:25 PM, Anita said:

I spent two days completely, obsessively rewriting my SOP for TAMU. Then I sent it away, and while recycling it for another school I discovered that toward the end I said I really wanted to go to "Texas T&M". FML.

At least you didn't say you were interested in Texas T&A. That could have been worse.

My best is I had a sentence in one of my apps was something like: "Another reason why this program is especially good for me is." Then a new unrelated subject.

[Anita]

At least you didn't say you were interested in Texas T&A. That could have been worse.

My best is I had a sentence in one of my apps was something like: "Another reason why this program is especially good for me is." Then a new unrelated subject.

I'm such a good girl, I had to Google "T&A"

[melusine]

I'm such a good girl, I had to Google "T&A"

lol me too!

just asked my bf and he didn't know either. says it's "frat boy slang" and i should be grateful he doesn't.

then again he's south american so it would be t&c for him. lol

[joro]

It took me a while to piece that together. I thought Texas T&A was a rival school, then you guys started to make it a bit more obvious and it finally clicked.

[Anita]

Yay for innocent minds!

[hubris]

Well, this seems to be the most interesting thread at the moment.

Bring on the T&A

[Venetia]

Is it bad that I got the T&A reference right away? I must have a filthy mind, I think it goes with studying English Lit- we find sex in everything! My personal application shame is that I misspelled 'vis-a-vis' (ie didn't put an accent on it). Doesn't sound like much, but seeing as the next paragraph hints at how amazing I am at French? Not cool! Although I don't think they'll notice; no one who proof-read the thing for me noticed it, at least!

[Anita]

...Or they'll just assume your word processor, e.g. Notepad, can't handle accent marks. Or that you're computer-challenged, which obviously isn't true because you know how to put in accent marks, but would be a reasonable assumption for English majors (no offense meant )

In all seriousness though, you guys (especially the folklorists) totally need to get your minds out of the gutter I remember reading an annotated version of Beauty and the Beast or something and seeing an explanation that "rose" is a metaphor for "vagina". Thank God I was a little too old to be traumatized

[melusine]

...Or they'll just assume your word processor, e.g. Notepad, can't handle accent marks. Or that you're computer-challenged, which obviously isn't true because you know how to put in accent marks, but would be a reasonable assumption for English majors (no offense meant )

In all seriousness though, you guys (especially the folklorists) totally need to get your minds out of the gutter I remember reading an annotated version of Beauty and the Beast or something and seeing an explanation that "rose" is a metaphor for "vagina". Thank God I was a little too old to be traumatized

Something a lot of people don't realize though, is the difference between assigning your own (filthy/sexual/whatever) interpretation to a text and reading it from a diachronic perspective that takes into account its origins/time of production/original intent and designated readership.

Fact is a lot of today's "Disney" fairy-tales were written by 18th century noblewomen to explain their futures as married women to their unmarried (and thus virgin) daughters.

Beauty and the Beast is one of those, written by Madame Leprince de Beaumont (not Perrault, as many people seem to assume) to instruct the younger ladies of the court that an older grumpy husband can actually be quite tender. While the rose-as-vagina may seem to us somewhat far-fetched, it was in fact an already existing and relatively self-evident trope in courtly literature at the time... Consider it the delicate 18th century equivalent to today's euphemistic promise rings or whatnot.

Folk tales (as opposed to literary tales penned by one author) like the ones recorded by the Grimms are sometimes even more explicitly sexual. Rapunzel, for instance, is teeming with allegoric representations of intercourse and is basically a giant metaphor of losing your virginity.

Sorry to get all lecture-y on you. I just wrote a cool couple papers on this.