Top 10 College Application Mistakes
The process of getting admission in a reputable college requires a lot of care when applying to different colleges. Among the various processes in college admission, a major aspect is the college application. This part of the admissions system requires students to complete it with extreme attention to detail. The college application usually includes academic records, personal interests, extracurricular activities, personal essays, letters of recommendation, high school work, etc. Students usually seek guidance involving the college application from their high school counselors. While filling out the application, students tend to make some common mistakes.
Mistake 1: The Iffy Online Application
Sometimes students submit online applications that ultimately do not get submitted to or accepted by the college authority. When you are doing an online submission of your application, you must ensure that the college has received the application via confirmation in the form of an email, credit card receipt, web page response, etc.
Mistake 2: Spelling and Grammatical Errors
When filling out details in the college application, special care has to be taken for misspellings and grammatical errors. Students are reported to make mistakes on the spelling of their intended majors and even sometimes on their own names. These things show you to be inattentive and careless.
Mistake 3: Keeping the School Counselor in the Dark
Sometimes students do not let their high school counselors know where they have applied. The school counselor must be informed and requested to review the high school transcript before sending it to colleges in case of any error or changes.
Mistake 4: Improper Signatures
Students often complete the application form but forget to sign it properly. Students do not check on the back end of the application form where an additional signature might be required. Always check every page to be sure you have not missed a single step.
Mistake 5: Not Checking Email
Students apply online but do not check the email address they gave on the application regularly. In this case, they may fail to attend the interview or send information according to any relevant deadline. Students must check their emails regularly to ensure that they do not miss any important thing.
Mistake 6: Extracurricular Activities Information
The college application has specified areas for including the student’s extracurricular activities. Many students overlook this portion or provide the wrong information. This may cause rejection if the college verifies the activities with the high school.
Mistake 7: Forgetting the Document Submission
The college application form requires some documents to be submitted. Students sometimes forget to attach these documents or do not submit the correct documents. Always check whether all necessary documents have been attached with the form.
Mistake 8: Illegible Writing
Students must remember that the first impression always counts and, to ensure a good result, they must fill out any written application form with good handwriting.
Mistake 9: Not Proofreading
After completing the application, proofread it to make sure that there are no mistakes. Simple errors are cause for admissions reviewers to reject your application outright.
Mistake 10: Letting Parents Fill Out the Application
Students may use their parents’ help in understanding the application but it must be completely filled out by the student. Any unusual changes in handwriting give a negative impression of the applicant.
Tags: College Application, College Application Mistakes, Emails, Online Application, School Counselors, students
This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 2:09 am and is filed under College Application. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 14th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hi, very nice post. I have been wonder’n bout this issue,so thanks for posting