Application Blunders

[durkin65]

This is my second round in the application process. During my first round, I accidentally left an "insert school here" in my statement of purpose. While I adjusted the statement to the school, I discovered that I missed that one. So remember, if you use that similar method, CHECK YOURSELF!

Does anyone else have any similar stories? Hopefully they'll help remind everyone else to check their work.

[Alyanumbers]

Oh god, I have a feeling I'll do something similar! ._.

This is my second round in the application process. During my first round, I accidentally left an "insert school here" in my statement of purpose. While I adjusted the statement to the school, I discovered that I missed that one. So remember, if you use that similar method, CHECK YOURSELF!

Does anyone else have any similar stories? Hopefully they'll help remind everyone else to check their work.

[stormydown]

Not my tale of woe, but my friend is currently applying to German MA programs and accidentally said "University of Michigan" in an email to a professor at the University of Minnesota (or vice-versa; can't remember which). She immediately sent a correction email apologizing profusely, but she still felt mortified.

[bck203]

If you aren't already using the "Undo Send" feature in Gmail, you should be. It allows you to unsend messages for 10 seconds after you send them. This has saved me many times, the most recent of which was this morning when I accidentally hit "reply-all" on a message my boss sent to a listserv. Almost sent a private message to a whole listserv...phew. Love you, Gmail.

[woolfie]

Last year the header on my SoP said "Statment" of Purpose. Not as big as "insert school here" but still. My boyfriend said he found a missing word in his SoP a week after he sent out all his applications and said he flew into a rage about it. But he still got in, and is in one of his top choice programs right now, so there is still hope. I think adcoms see a lot of typos, and obviously your application should be impeccable, it's just so easy to miss little things here and there.

[diehtc0ke]

I sent the entirely wrong statement of purpose to my top-choice school. Needless to say I was rejected. Always double check that lol.

[fall-11]

A few years back, I applied to a creative writing MFA program, and I wrote "Crative Writing" in the very first sentence of the SOP. I'm sure the adcom didn't bother to read beyond that first sentence! I mean, what could be worse than an aspiring writer who can't spell "creative"?