LEONARD ANDREW CONSULTING
  • Home
  • About LAC
  • Services
    • Boarding/Prep/Day School
    • College/University
    • Transfers
    • Tutoring/Common App Help
    • Athletic Recruiting
    • Essay Endurance
  • LAC Blog
  • Extras
    • Testimonials/Acceptances
    • Partnerships
    • Events
  • Get In Touch
  • LAC Promos

Keys to Submitting Your Best College Application: Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

11/30/2014

0 Comments

 
What is the number one mistake that high school seniors make when completing their college applications? Not taking the time to proofread. 

With college admissions being more competitive now than ever before, students simply cannot afford to be careless and not review their work before submitting.  As admissions teams are assessing thousands of applications, silly mistakes can cause your application to end up in the wrong file – the round one.

College Application Proofreading Tips:

Don’t procrastinate. One, you’ll give yourself plenty of time to calmly look over all aspects of your application and make any changes or revisions that may be necessary without feeling added pressure.  Two, you’ll be able to successfully meet the application deadlines for your desired schools.  In addition, admissions teams have read plenty of applications to know when an application has been carefully put together by a responsible student, and when an application been hastily thrown together at the last second.

Allow a parent, teacher, or counselor to look over your application.  (Note that this is NOT the same as having them DO IT for you…you are the one applying to college, not them.) Having someone read over your application is a great way to further work out any kinks – they’ll be able to notice grammatical and spelling errors, make note of any omissions of required information, and will be able to provide valuable feedback on your application essay.  Also, while utilizing spellcheck is the norm (and typically works well) don’t assume that the program will pick up on every little detail.  A fresh pair of eyes looking over your work will be able to negate any possible embarrassment from commonly misused words that often slip by the spellcheck (than/then, accept/except, there/their/they’re, etc.).

Lastly, while cutting and pasting can be a terrific tool, and recycling essays can be a huge time saver, both acts tend to enable carelessness…with the application playing such a huge role in your future you cannot just set it and forget it.  Many times, prospective students will simply plug previously used passages into place on an application for a different school, not proofreading their work and instead taking for granted that if the essays worked once, that they will work again.  Consequently, a common error occurs on the ‘Why Our School?’ essay when the application is submitted but the student forgets to change the name of the school.  Seems simple, right? Yet, this error happens more often than it ever should.  Embarrassing? Absolutely. Detrimental to your chances? Definitely. And, as we just had rivalry games in college football on Saturday, can you imagine telling the University of Michigan how badly you want to be a Buckeye? Writing to Oregon State to tell them you’ve always wanted to be a Duck? Or working to convince the University of Alabama that you’ve had your heart set on being a Tiger?

Yikes.

Read, review and then proofread your applications again.  Take care to submit your best work, the best reflection of yourself…and good luck!


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Chad Dorman

    LAC - Founder/Director

    Jaclyn Corley

    Founder - The College Essay Captain, and featured guest blogger here for LAC. It's her mission to inspire people to tell empowering stories.

    Archives

    March 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    February 2016
    September 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed





Copyright 2013-2023. Leonard Andrew Consulting, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Photos used under Creative Commons from picdrops, hillels, verchmarco, Editor B, dwhartwig, Theo Crazzolara