Spelling error frustration

[Porridge]

I'm being paranoid and I am looking for someone to tell me to lighten up or else give me some words of encouragement.

I have been thorough with applications. Checking them obsessively. I've had half a dozen people look over my SOP,

Yet,..I found one error before I caught it (by which time it had been sent to three places).

It's not a massive error, I mispelt a theorist's name. Wrote an 'e' where there should have been an 'a'. God, I'm kicking myself.

The paranoid in me is saying I've blewn it. I don't intend to say anything...no point drawing attention to it. But...all there is left for me to do is insert a sad face:

[midnight]

Don't worry about it and let it go. You're only human, and it sounds like a very small mistake.

I assure you that you will not be rejected from grad school due to a minor spelling error in your SOP. People have been known to submit the wrong SOP altogether and still get in!

This process asks a lot from applicants in a short, stressful period of time; stuff happens.

[TakeruK]

Don't worry about it! Rejecting a student purely on a spelling error is ridiculous and while there is a lot of mystery with grad school admissions, I am pretty sure academics are still going to take an academic approach to evaluating applications (i.e. judge and weigh all aspects) instead of using arbitrary rules to make the decision. Rejecting purely because of a typo is as silly as a rule like "let's reject everyone who submits their application on an odd numbered day". Of course, it's probably not the best thing to misspell an important theorist's name, but I'm sure the rest of your application shows that you actually know what you're talking about!

[practical cat]

It's fine. I'm sure people misspell their OWN names from time to time on applications and it's actually pretty possible that someone powering through 200 of those is not going to catch it on the first read either. You'll be fine.