I've Made A Huge Mistake

[kudrinskaya]

I submitted an application to an education Ph.D. program that I am highly interested in. There is one professor that has done years of relevant research in the particular area I focus on. My interest in applying to this program is entirely because of this professor. I've read everything he's written over the past several years, read a book he wrote several times, etc. In my statement of purpose, I mention one particular book, a book I've read fully through probably half a dozen times, by name - but I wrote the wrong name. Somehow I wrote a different word for one of the words in the title. Somehow during all my proofreading I just glanced over it and didn't catch it. Nobody else that proofread it would necessarily know it was wrong. I feel like an absolute idiot.

TL:DR - My SoP talked about how influential a professor is in my research, and I called his book by the wrong name.

Should I A. try contacting the admissions department to see if I can upload a new document?
               B. crawl in a hole in the ground and feel like an absolute moron?
               C. just hope that a single - though incredibly significantly placed - mistake won't sink my application?
               D. all of the above.

(The answer I've gone with is D, ha. But if anybody has any other advice, I'd love to hear it. Or just tell me my application is doomed.)

[Sigaba]

Please clarify. Did you get the book's title wrong or the book's author wrong?

(Either / or, I don't think it is an unrecoverable error if your SOP is solidly written otherwise--especially if you're applying to an educational psychology department.)

If doing so will ease your state of mind, please do contact the appropriate person by telephone and see if you can swap in the corrected document. I do not recommend going into detail--just say that you belatedly caught a typo. Try to think of the request as "it's no big deal one way or another" even though you may be dying inside. If the answer is "no," (which I would expect), do what you can to accept the decision, honor the way you feel about the whole thing, learn what you can, and then go on with your life.

Please make sure that you understand that you made a mistake. You are not a moron. You are a person competing for admission to a graduate program during multiple overlapping global crises that are having destructive cascading impacts upon the fabric of society. 

[Qasim Rauf]

Honestly speaking I dont think is an issue however would love to know how bad of a mis-spelling was in your SOP. 

 

But still - it usually is not a big deal. The person above me is right, You can email the admission department for ease of mind.

 

Cheers

[kudrinskaya]

18 hours ago, Sigaba said:

Please clarify. Did you get the book's title wrong or the book's author wrong?

(Either / or, I don't think it is an unrecoverable error if your SOP is solidly written otherwise--especially if you're applying to an educational psychology department.)

If doing so will ease your state of mind, please do contact the appropriate person by telephone and see if you can swap in the corrected document. I do not recommend going into detail--just say that you belatedly caught a typo. Try to think of the request as "it's no big deal one way or another" even though you may be dying inside. If the answer is "no," (which I would expect), do what you can to accept the decision, honor the way you feel about the whole thing, learn what you can, and then go on with your life.

Please make sure that you understand that you made a mistake. You are not a moron. You are a person competing for admission to a graduate program during multiple overlapping global crises that are having destructive cascading impacts upon the fabric of society. 

The title, not the author. I wrote his name correctly and spoke about the issues he focuses on, so hopefully the mistake is not such a big deal. I've calmed down a bit after the initial shock of realizing what I had done. Thanks for the kind words.

[kudrinskaya]

9 hours ago, Qasim Rauf said:

Honestly speaking I dont think is an issue however would love to know how bad of a mis-spelling was in your SOP. 

 

But still - it usually is not a big deal. The person above me is right, You can email the admission department for ease of mind.

 

Cheers

Thanks. It wasn't a misspelling exactly, I wrote the word 'education' instead of the world 'childhood'. I can't explain how my brain overlooked that every time I looked at it, read it out loud, etc. I think in my mind I just mentally skimmed over it, like 'yeah the title is there' and somehow didn't register what I was seeing/saying. Live and learn. I've emailed to see if I can make a change. Even if I can't, I'm much less panicked a day later. Thanks for the support.

[Qasim Rauf]

6 hours ago, kudrinskaya said:

Thanks. It wasn't a misspelling exactly, I wrote the word 'education' instead of the world 'childhood'. I can't explain how my brain overlooked that every time I looked at it, read it out loud, etc. I think in my mind I just mentally skimmed over it, like 'yeah the title is there' and somehow didn't register what I was seeing/saying. Live and learn. I've emailed to see if I can make a change. Even if I can't, I'm much less panicked a day later. Thanks for the support.

No Problem - Hope you get the admission to your desired institution.

[Crucial BBQ]

It wouldn't hurt to shoot the program director an email about the correction but in general I wouldn't worry about.  It is more common than you may think.