Overheard in Committee: What’s With the Tyops (We Mean Typos)

We Admit It! Committee season is here. During this time of year, our admission committee meets each day in order to have thoughtful and detailed discussions about our many impressive applicants. Since we know that these next few weeks can be particularly stressful for our readers, we like to give you an inside look into what actually goes on behind closed doors. So without further ado, we present to you the first Overheard in Committee blog of the 2016 Regular Decision deliberations.

Overheard in Committee: “What’s with all the typos?”

This particular applicant had made a few typos in a couple of different sections of their application. Did these typos ruin this student’s chances of being admitted? Not at all. But this situation does bring up an important point. As an admission committee, we are certain that each of our applicants has achieved tremendous things both in and outside the classroom. If we were to have access to all of the assignments that you have completed throughout high school, we would find several assignments that we love and that are absolutely phenomenal. 100%, A+ work. The problem is that we don’t have access to all of the assignments you’ve ever completed; your application is the one tangible piece of your work that we get to review. You therefore want this application to reflect your strengths as a student. While we of course understand that mistakes happen, if several typos start to appear we may question just how seriously a candidate took their application.

So far this committee season we’ve seen capitans (captains), chasiers (cashiers), individuals who are passionate about envieourmental science (environmental science), caouches (coaches), individuals who are taking calculas (calculus) as well as several other interesting variations of words. A more extreme example came last admission cycle, when a young man wrote an essay about how passionate he was about service work. He wrote beautifully about how he started his own student organization that collected and donated shirts and other items of clothing. However in several parts of his essay he forgot the letter “r” in “shirt.” The essay ended up taking a very different tone than what he originally intended…

Such grievances rarely, if ever, sway our conversation towards an admission decision other than what would have been decided without the typos. But they can start to raise questions in our minds (just as they would for potential future employers reading job applications). So play it safe. Be sure to always proofread, edit and carefully review applications, emails and any other assignments before you submit them. A well put-together application helps your already exciting accomplishments “pop” that much more.

Stay tuned next week for additional peeks behind the Committee curtain. We wish you all a terrific and relaxing weekend.

Brad Harlan
Assistant Dean of Admission

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