Typos--very embarrassed

[Heurodis]

Sage forum, I've been lurking for a while, but this is my first post. I just submitted an application to a school I very much want to go to--and realized after submitting that I had turned my second to last rather than my last draft of the SoP in! And that second to last draft had at least to embarrassing errors, one where I had not yet removed an alternative word (so it reads "the period in which during") and I also realized that I have inconsistently written MA thesis and M.A. thesis, and some other stuff with doubling of phrases at the beginning of sentences, etc.

What would you do? Contact the graduate school and ask if you could resubmit? Right now it looks really bad, and I would certainly reject myself!

[augustquail]

Sage forum, I've been lurking for a while, but this is my first post. I just submitted an application to a school I very much want to go to--and realized after submitting that I had turned my second to last rather than my last draft of the SoP in! And that second to last draft had at least to embarrassing errors, one where I had not yet removed an alternative word (so it reads "the period in which during") and I also realized that I have inconsistently written MA thesis and M.A. thesis, and some other stuff with doubling of phrases at the beginning of sentences, etc.

What would you do? Contact the graduate school and ask if you could resubmit? Right now it looks really bad, and I would certainly reject myself!

I definately wouldn't contact them. Although it seems like the end of the world right now, it isn't really a big deal. If your sop and writing sample are great (minus the typos), I don't think a few little errors are going to keep you out. Someone on the WGI lounge posted a similar experience to the one you've described, except that they mispelled the name of a professor who happened to be on the admissons committee. They got into that program (a top one) anyway. So try not to stress!

[Heurodis]

Thank you, Augustquail, but I just discovered another one which is worse than ones mentioned before. The thing is, while I'm very confident in my writing sample, I am not so sure about my SoP for this school. And with the additional errors...hm.

[eklavya]

Things like these - small/big typos, choice of words, forgetting to switch department/program names between different SoPs, etc - are common. There is no way any one is going to be 100% satisfied with their applications. We all make mistakes, and the adcomms know that. They won't come to a decision based on a trivial error. Chill out. You'll be fine.

[Heurodis]

Thank you both. I am sure you're right! I guess I will try to chill out...best of luck to you.

[Medievalmaniac]

Sage forum, I've been lurking for a while, but this is my first post. I just submitted an application to a school I very much want to go to--and realized after submitting that I had turned my second to last rather than my last draft of the SoP in! And that second to last draft had at least to embarrassing errors, one where I had not yet removed an alternative word (so it reads "the period in which during") and I also realized that I have inconsistently written MA thesis and M.A. thesis, and some other stuff with doubling of phrases at the beginning of sentences, etc.

What would you do? Contact the graduate school and ask if you could resubmit? Right now it looks really bad, and I would certainly reject myself!

It's not so complicated. Just email the graduate admissions office the correct SOP with all of your identifying information on it, and request that the other, which was a draft version, be swapped out for this, which is the final version.

They handle this sort of thing all day long, this time of year. Don't sweat it, don't make a big deal out of it, just very calmly and matter-of-factly give them the correct version.

[pinkoats]

Try to relax. When I applied to masters degrees, I had more than one typo in my SOP to Columbia, and I still got in.

[harpyemma]

I huge number of us have done it. I had 'postmoden' in one of the SOPs i submitted yesterday. Caught it about 30s after i submitted the app. Oy.

[ElectedSilence]

I submitted a few with typos too - I think this is definitely common. I contacted the department administrators, who made a substitution. I also agree that a couple typos are unlikely to tip the scales. On a host of topics, I think departments project an air of high consequence as a way of making sure that things get in ROUGHLY on time and in FAIRLY good shape.