When I was applying to graduate school, the most common piece of advice was:
“In undergraduate admission, they are looking for a reason to say yes. In graduate admission, they are looking for a reason to say no.”
The reasoning was very practical. Universities and even small colleges have a dedicated department for undergraduate admissions with entire staffs whose full-time job is first recruiting then judging applicants. While many colleges have a central clearing house for graduate admissions, the main thrust of the admission work falls on the professors in the department themselves.
Overall this is better, of course, because grad students will work much more directly and intensely with professors, who in theory want to choose their cohorts and likely TAs. But professors are asked to do this work on top of their full-time teaching, researching, and mentoring jobs.
So YES, many of them are looking for mistakes in the submission or little oddities that allow them to throw out an application without evaluating it fully -- so that they can get on with their usual work.
In general, I very much hope that you do not look at your undergraduate admissions like this. I recommend instead thinking of your application as giving the admissions officers as many reasons as possible to say, “Yes, I like this one.”
That really is their attitude. Why they went into this job.
But, well, I’m suspicious that they don’t care about those little fiddly mistakes.
Why I Don’t Buy It
It’s easy to not be bothered by a simple, understandable mistake the first time you see it. It’s much harder the thousandth time. Even just the 50th time. Hell, depending on my mood, the 10th time could be too much for me that day.
Whenever people talk about little mistakes not mattering, I think back to one long day several years ago when I sat in on the Houston Allied Auditions. It is a cattle call audition for all but the two most prestigious theatre companies in Houston to cast the majority of their seasons. Two long weekend days when hundreds of actors had two minutes to impress everyone in the Houston industry (in theory).
I was in the room because three of my friends run Houston’s first immersive theatre company (and the only one to be world-renowned). Usually, two of them did casting, but only one could go that year, and they agreed that I could go to be a second set of eyes (I suspect they were just being nice, but they did ask for my assessment of a couple actors) and also see a professional audition to help me give better advice to my students going into the profession.
I don’t bring this up to brag about knowing them (although that is their link above, and they are beginning to re-open their live show with careful restrictions).
I bring this up because I remember that afternoon as the day I watched my sympathy for auditioners who made the same small mistake slowly, then rapidly, evaporate.
I work hard to keep that from happening when I grade papers, but I’ve felt that before. And this was the afternoon when I felt it viscerally declining and turning sour. And it is what I imagine must happen in admissions offices around the country as they process literally thousands of applications.
OMG STOP TRIPPING ALREADY!
This is what happened.
There was a minor tripping hazard on the well-labeled path from the door where the actors entered to the mark placed quietly on the stage (for musicals-based casting to see if they could hit their mark without detailed instructions).
The hazard wasn’t something simple like a wire that should have been taped down or an object we could have just moved when it began to grate on our nerves. And, this is key, it was not such a hazard that anyone actually tripped. It was a hazard that looked like it would trip you but actually just made you have to stop and step more carefully.
No one was in danger. You know how many stage managers were in that crowd? No one was in danger and no one tripped.
But it felt like everybody thought they had nearly tripped and possibly died. Just about everybody got to the part that forced you to slow down and step carefully, were startled, and made what felt like the same little noise of distress and the exact same joke about their near-clumsiness or confusion.
And we knew that this was, for them, the first time that this had happened. And none of them threw a fit or even complained. Nothing that would actually deserve to count as a mark against them.
But as the hours stretched and the same little mistake happened at the beginning of (nearly) every audition, I began to fight my hatred for the latest actor to feel like they had to play off their near-tumble with a bit of charm that just wasted all of our time and got us further behind schedule.
I could usually overcome it for a talented performance. But it heightened my criticism of other aspects of the audition. And now they were starting at a disadvantage, performing for someone sullen rather than eager to see them succeed.
And I wasn’t alone.
In the gaps between actors exiting and the new one entering, I started hearing huffs and complaints. Hearing people laugh off their near-not-trip made the musical theatre casting directors less willing to forgive the actors not hitting their mark onstage. Early in the day, the talk was if they should move the chairs so actors wouldn’t be confused, if it was prominent enough, if that was in their pre-audition instructions. By the afternoon, they were reading it as a failing of the actor.
Probably from sheer annoyance.
We Don’t WANT to Hate You For Getting Little Things Wrong
Every good teacher I know has a variety of strategies to combat the feeling when this happens. My usual tactic was to blame myself – clearly, I did not make the instructions clear enough. Oh don’t get me wrong, I know students don’t bother to read those, but when I’m trying not to be mad about a mistake, thinking it might be my fault helps.
That tactic was useless here. It was neither my fault nor, as I looked at it longer and analyzed, the fault of those running auditions. It’s just one of those little weird architecture quirks that the actors should have been able to figure out without turning it into a damn comedic bit!!
There’s not a good or safe place for this kind of silly, fiddly mistake in the Pile of Papers.
Sometimes, if you were the 10th person in a row who made some little formatting mistake, I was ready to forgive and even discount everyone who had ever made that mistake. Sometimes that was the one that broke me.
Following 10 people who got it right, in contrast, might make me feel more forgiving…or might mean that I was reassured that the instructions were crystal clear and YOU were the problem.
So YES, you DO need to get all the fiddly details right. Don’t blow off the “random” questions, and Dad, if you can read this, you were probably right about using the typewriter rather than my handwriting in the end.
No, it won’t keep you from getting in if you’re a great candidate. But it CAN hurt you, if the admissions officer is starting out ready to dislike you rather than embrace you.
It won’t knock you out of the running, but they go through too many applications to give endless grace.
Want help with your essay to avoid all the little mistakes? Set up an appointment with the Renegade Writing Center here or email me at renegadewritingtutor@gmail.com.
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