Awful Realization

[tspier2]

Hi everyone! I just remembered last night that I had copied one line from one of my other SOPs, but I didn't realize that it had referenced a different school. Every other reference is correct in my school-specific SOPs, excluding that one line. I emailed the graduate admissions at each school to apologize for the oversight and assure them that such a mistake is not representative of my best week. Given that I reference the correct school four more times in each SOP, how much do you think this will hurt me? I'm sure they must realize that small errors like this probably (?) happen relatively frequently.

[TexasGuy]

what you should have done is offer to send them an updated SOP. 6 times out of 10 there is someone you can speak to who would gladly update your SOP for you

[Usmivka]

If anyone else has a similar issue in the future, I suggest emailing with a corrected document right away and saying something to the effect of "I accidentally submitted the wrong document, the correct one is attached, please append it to my application with a note to this effect."  Pointing out the problem seems less useful than correcting it. tspier2, you can likely still do the same. Clearly it is minor in terms of the edit to fix it, and if the SOP is written to the prompt it is hard to imagine it being viewed as a "recycled" essay. I doubt anyone is self-important enough to take offence at the line. That said, I don't think that particular mistake is very common in grad apps, or at least I haven't seen any anguished posts about it besides yours.

[Snglo-Aaxon]

Hi everyone! I just remembered last night that I had copied one line from one of my other SOPs, but I didn't realize that it had referenced a different school. Every other reference is correct in my school-specific SOPs, excluding that one line. I emailed the graduate admissions at each school to apologize for the oversight and assure them that such a mistake is not representative of my best week. Given that I reference the correct school four more times in each SOP, how much do you think this will hurt me? I'm sure they must realize that small errors like this probably (?) happen relatively frequently.

This happens. I did it. I was still admitted to top schools. Do not sweat it.

[tspier2]

If anyone else has a similar issue in the future, I suggest emailing with a corrected document right away and saying something to the effect of "I accidentally submitted the wrong document, the correct one is attached, please append it to my application with a note to this effect."  Pointing out the problem seems less useful than correcting it. tspier2, you can likely still do the same. Clearly it is minor in terms of the edit to fix it, and if the SOP is written to the prompt it is hard to imagine it being viewed as a "recycled" essay. I doubt anyone is self-important enough to take offence at the line. That said, I don't think that particular mistake is very common in grad apps, or at least I haven't seen any anguished posts about it besides yours.

 

Thanks for your feedback! I did also touch base with them to provide the corrected version. I did find the same type of question from others on different websites, but it didn't seem too frequent on this forum.

 

This happens. I did it. I was still admitted to top schools. Do not sweat it.

 

Phew! Thanks for the reassurance. 

 

EDIT: I just received a response from one of the schools, and I was told not to worry about it, that it's not a big deal, etc.

Edited December 31, 2013 by tspier2