Found a typo in my personal statement and corrected it within one hour of the personal statements being available to programs. How will this affect me

[deleted1016251]

So here’s what happened.

I asked someone to proof read my personal statement like three weeks ago. They finally got back to me with their edits late last night. I was ready to submit my PS as is and make no changes but then I read their edits which were phenomenal. They took my essay which I’d rate as a 7/10 and made it so much better. They are obviously an amazing writer.

The problem is that I couldn’t get all of their edits in and update my PS before bed last night. I’m on a rotation where I need to wake up early and had to get some sleep.

I know that programs get access to the applications at 6am PST (my timezone) and that you can continuously edit your PS all throughout the application cycle.

So I got up and started making edits to it at 5am this morning. I got all of the edits I wanted to make in to the essay before 6am and quickly rushed to work.

At work I decide to reread the essay an hour after it became available to programs and found one very minor typo, which I immediately corrected at 7am.

Here is my question:

1. How screwed am I by this?
2. What do programs do with personal statements since they can constantly be altered by the applicants all throughout the app cycle? Basically I just wanna know if there are some programs out there that download your application immediately and never follow up on the updates you make, and therefore will have the typo in my PS permanently. Or is there some other way that programs review personal statements online or something and therefore I’m probably okay since they’ll just see the latest version which has no typo.

thanks for your help with this. It’s making me very nervous

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[hopefulERdoc251]

I mean how big of a typo? Are we talking something that was erronously copied and pasted, a simple grammar error, missing a preposition etc? Afaik, your PS is more of a checkbox and one small mistake probably won't do anything significant to tank your application.

 

[deleted1016251]

I mean how big of a typo? Are we talking something that was erronously copied and pasted, a simple grammar error, missing a preposition etc? Afaik, your PS is more of a checkbox and one small mistake probably won't do anything significant to tank your application.

It was very minor. I wrote “achisvment” instead of “achievement”.

I just don’t want to be perceived as sloppy or someone who does things without checking them thoroughly

 

[hopefulERdoc251]

It was very minor. I wrote “achisvment” instead of “achievement”

you're probably fine lol, that's something so minor it may not even be picked up...they got so many PS to read that idt they're actually reading each one with a fine tooth comb!

 

[yeasports]

This is a bigger deal than you think for the following reasons:

1. PD's and APD's love spelling. They love it more than medicine, in fact they would rather take candidates from the national spelling bee rather than med school grads!
2. The residency committee will think "man, that guy can't spell and may want to cheat if we play scrabble!"
3. In some states misspelling a word could be a felony and you have to list it on your future application.
4. There is a super secret spelling portion to medical boards, you will be required to wear a tweed jacket for this portion. They will have your residency application and automatically fail you!

Ok I hope you had a laugh. Now take a deep breath and realize this is nothing! YOU ARE FINE

 

[gutonc]

Dude...I really hope you're working with a therapist and/or psychiatrist on your anxiety issues. I mean this seriously and honestly. You have numerous threads here where you have taken a tiny issue like this and conflated it to murdering your med school dean.

Residency is a long and stressful road, medical practice arguably more so. You need to have some sort of tools in place to manage your anxiety better or you're in for a real struggle.

Good luck.