Just Sent a Secondary with wrong school name

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hahaha, probably! You never know. They how how stressed applicants are. It just depends on if the admissions person has their coffee yet. It wouldn't hurt to send an email to clarify.
 
The funny thing about naivete is that you never really know how far into it you are until you grow out of it...
 
Permavirgin said:
What if you used the wrong name with your patients? You could kill someone. I'm sure the medical schools would agree
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I bet they will think "well screw this kid if he can't keep our name straight" well before anything else. We don't need to extrapolate every behavior into patient care, people.

Didn't wash your hands after taking a leak? You would never make it in surgery.

🙄
 
Jepstein30 said:
Yea..

You guys are making adcoms out to be evil people that peruse applications to find any small flaw that will then cause them to chuck the application.

They, like us, are humans and know people make mistakes. Out of the many things people can do wrong in this process, writing the wrong 3 letters is no where near the worst.
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AiyaTuc said:
This isn't a small flaw. It's a huge oversight. If you're applying for a job at company A and mention company B's name by mistake, there is no way company A is going to give you a job.
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This isn't making adcom's out to be anything. But yes, they are looking for reasons to weed out applications that is the job. No different than any employer, only in an even larger scale.

I routinely get 40-50 applications for most salaried positions I post in my department given the economy. I don't have time to read 40 resumes, much less the thousands of applications medicals schools get. I can go filter from 50 down to 10 resumes in less than 20 minutes. Like it or not, yes, if I see something this blatant I don't care if you have a PhD from MIT I will trash your application just so I don't have to read the rest of it. Same goes for medical schools. You have to filter somehow, this type of mistake just makes it easier.
 
If I happened to be reviewing this application, I would laugh at the mistake and if it was someone I otherwise thought was a strong applicant, would not consider it an important aspect of my evaluation.

Personally, I recommend sending an email to the admissions office simply indicating that you mixed up essays and wish to provide the revised version (presumably with the correct school name this time 😉).

As always YMMV. I'm sure some adcom members would find this a lethal error. I'm sure others, including me, would laugh at it unless the essay sent specifically dissed my school, which apparently didn't happen here.
 
Tildy said:
If I happened to be reviewing this application, I would laugh at the mistake and if it was someone I otherwise thought was a strong applicant, would not consider it an important aspect of my evaluation.

Personally, I recommend sending an email to the admissions office simply indicating that you mixed up essays and wish to provide the revised version (presumably with the correct school name this time 😉).

As always YMMV. I'm sure some adcom members would find this a lethal error. I'm sure others, including me, would laugh at it unless the essay sent specifically dissed my school, which apparently didn't happen here.
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Hope exists for you OP 👍 By most people's judgement you're already rejected from this school. Certainly can't hurt to try at this point.
 
Is this school your top choice? I agree that an email would point out the mistake. Your best choice would be to just hope they don't catch the mistake. Not much you can do at this point sorry =/
 
BiologyNerd said:
Searched the forums, I couldn't find this. I just reused an essay that had another school name in it, and sent it in. Lol. Amateur mistake I know, but do you guys think I'm done for at that school now?
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I actually think the real answer comes from this entire thread in general. You're going to have adcom members who are real pissed off by it, and you have little chance of redeeming yourself with. On the other hand, others will be inclined to let it slide, so long as it was a lone error, and it wasn't in what are supposed to be unique responses, such as "Why our school?". I would advise you to frame your response as if you knew both it and your original error-bearing essay would be received by the latter type of member, and just cross your fingers. Nothing else you can really do about it, except to learn from your mistake. At least it was just one school (right?)

Edit: I'm going to walk back my suggestion that you should "cross your fingers". After fessing up to the mistake (if you do so), assume your app at that school is sunk, and move on. Then, if you should receive an II from them, consider it a pleasant surprise.
 
Jepstein30 said:
You guys do realize I am not the OP and did not do this, right?

If I was MedPR, I would write "Good job with reading comprehension here. You're far wiser than me and it's obvious you're going places." But (thankfully) I'm not.

And also, that wasn't justifying anything. Never in this thread did I ever justify the mistake. That was a simple statement regarding the use and re-use of secondary essays. How you connected that to justifying the OP's error, I'll never know.

I like how people act as if I know nothing about how adcoms view things (which I don't) but they somehow know all the inner workings (which they don't). I'm sure it definitely hurts to have made this mistake but I simply cannot see any adcom dismissing YEARS of hard work on the basis of one simple error.

This isn't like he got caught drunk driving or cheating on an exam. You're talking about three letters here.. People make mistakes and in the relative grand scheme of things, this ranks pretty low.

Will it hurt your chances? Yep, probably a ton. Will it get you an auto-rejection? I don't think so. It certainly doesn't increase the already bad odds one has in applying. If a school otherwise thinks you are a great fit for their class, I don't think three letters is going to change that much. You're definitely going to have a harder time convincing them of that fact though.
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You don't realize that every single school gets thousands of qualified applicants who didn't get caught doing any of the things you mention. Schools want students who are sincere about liking their program. They know we apply broadly and tell everyone that they are our top choice, but that doesn't mean they don't want to be made to actually believe it. You keep trying to justify the mistake by saying "well, it's not as bad as XYZ" but that honestly doesn't matter. I mean, a 3.0/28 isn't as bad as a 2.5/25, but that doesn't make the 3.0/28 desirable to ADCOMs. They're comparing thousands of applicants that made no mistakes.. they aren't worrying about the lesser of two evils and that's what you have to realize.

Jepstein30 said:
I like how he edited the post after I quoted and pointed out how stupid it was.

Anyways, again to the OP, send an email. Worst that can happen is they reject you which odds are they were going to do anyways before the mistake.

Let us know how it goes.
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Actually, I edited before you created your post. Deleting the first sentence helped make the sarcasm more evident.
 
MedPR said:
You don't realize that every single school gets thousands of qualified applicants who didn't get caught doing any of the things you mention. Schools want students who are sincere about liking their program. They know we apply broadly and tell everyone that they are our top choice, but that doesn't mean they don't want to be made to actually believe it. You keep trying to justify the mistake by saying "well, it's not as bad as XYZ" but that honestly doesn't matter. I mean, a 3.0/28 isn't as bad as a 2.5/25, but that doesn't make the 3.0/28 desirable to ADCOMs. They're comparing thousands of applicants that made no mistakes.. they aren't worrying about the lesser of two evils and that's what you have to realize.
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Don't bother reading the opinion of an actual adcom member. Not like his opinion matters. You are obviously more well informed.

Again, like Tildy said, it depends on the person reading the application and the context it was used in. If it wasn't "XYZ is my top choice" or "XYZ is amazing because of ABC" and was simply a "At XYZ, I hope to continue activity ABC" type mistake.. I don't see it being an auto-rejection.

An auto-rejection is hard to achieve IMO. We're talking about criminal history, extremely low stats (<3.0/25), incomplete application (blank essays, absolutely NO ECs) or the like. Writing the wrong school name in an answer to a general question such as "current activities" like the OP did is far from being in this group.

You are also weighing stats too heavily. There aren't "thousands of applicants just like you" because stats aren't the only things that matter. If everyone wrote the same essays, had the same ECs.. then yea, this is a killer because some other guy didn't make the same mistake. But if the school thinks you are a great fit based on your PS, ECs, LORs and stats.. I just can't see them changing their opinion heavily based on a reference to the incorrect school made in passing.

There's really no point in arguing this because not only will we never know what will happen to the OP (unless he gets an interview) but because it is also impossible to ever find out how every single adcom member views this mistake. Tildy is evidence that adcoms do view this mistake differently.. whether that's just him/her or applies to other adcoms.. we will never know. Neither of us have opinions that are worth more than a grain of salt in this regard.
 
Pattycake25 said:
Edit: I'm going to walk back my suggestion that you should "cross your fingers". After fessing up to the mistake (if you do so), assume your app at that school is sunk, and move on. Then, if you should receive an II from them, consider it a pleasant surprise.
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That's what I do for every school :laugh:

Send my secondary in, assume I'm going to get rejected and then sit back and wait for any more correspondence from them so I can celebrate!
 
Jepstein30 said:
Don't bother reading the opinion of an actual adcom member. Not like his opinion matters. You are obviously more well informed.
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Two experienced adcom members have posted here with two differing opinions. And I do interviews for my school, so while I don't decide who gets an interview, I have half the say in what happens after (my school weights student interviews equally as faculty). So, yes, you will run into different types of adcoms, who will have differing opinions. So, right now there's 1.5 (counting myself as half) for "forget this school", and 1 for "if it falls into the right hands you may have a chance", if we're actually going to keep score in this ridiculous discussion.
 
Have you seen the number of mistake emails that certain medical schools have sent out? I have gotten emails ranging from just a list of ALL applicants' names to "We had hoped to have it working by this afternoon…I won’t bore you with the details, but unfortunately it is not going to be up…we are now hoping for Friday, but it could go into next week. " The latter is copy and pasted verbatim (ha, I made a funny. Sorry, should not make fun of your circumstances). But seriously though, Adcom are people too. Send in an email or call in and explain. They'll laugh about it. You'll laugh about it, and everything will be good.
 
SisterDisco08 said:
Two experienced adcom members have posted here with two differing opinions. And I do interviews for my school, so while I don't decide who gets an interview, I have half the say in what happens after (my school weights student interviews equally as faculty). So, yes, you will run into different types of adcoms, who will have differing opinions. So, right now there's 1.5 (counting myself as half) for "forget this school", and 1 for "if it falls into the right hands you may have a chance", if we're actually going to keep score in this ridiculous discussion.
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So sounds like:


Jepstein30 said:
Again, like Tildy said, it depends on the person reading the application and the context it was used in. If it wasn't "XYZ is my top choice" or "XYZ is amazing because of ABC" and was simply a "At XYZ, I hope to continue activity ABC" type mistake.. I don't see it being an auto-rejection.
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Please realize I've never said all adcoms will forgive him. Most on this thread have said its an auto-rejection, which clearly it is not.. no reason to keep score..
 
Slack3r said:
ITT: premeds arguing with medical student interviewers and adcoms :corny:
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👍

Do you really want to be "that guy"? "Yeah, but is it POSSIBLE? In this one anecdotal piece of evidence, something worked out in a way everyone said could never happen, JUS' SAYIN'". Come on. No one likes that guy. Especially not in lecture.
 
Last edited:
I'm surprised how well my thread is being answered, but lets keep it civil shall we? There is no need for the sarcasm and argumentative attitude.

I appreciate everyone's responses and I definitely will update everyone on my status at this school. Thanks.
 
SisterDisco08 said:
👍

Do you really want to be "that guy"? "Yeah, but is it POSSIBLE? In this one anecdotal piece of evidence, something worked out in a way everyone said could never happen, JUS' SAYIN'". Come on. No one likes that guy. Especially not in lecture.
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Haha... THAT guy. Ugh. We have one of those in our class. :scared: One too many.
 
Not as bad as when schools accidentally send out acceptances to students they meant to reject...(or vice versa)
 
grapepopsicle said:
Wait, so they sent an email with a list of the names of everyone who applied to that school? Damn, that's pretty bad.
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Probably a mass email with everyone's name's showing or something....wouldn't be THAT surprised if something similar happens occasionally....
 
music2doc said:
Probably a mass email with everyone's name's showing or something....wouldn't be THAT surprised if something similar happens occasionally....
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Actually, there was no email just

"Dear Sara,
Dear George,
Dear Mike,
Dear...."
 
SisterDisco08 said:
Not as bad as when schools accidentally send out acceptances to students they meant to reject...(or vice versa)
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I can't even imagine the feeling of having an acceptance taken away like that. Especially if it was one's only acceptance.
 
What's done is done. I would advise against sending an email. If you ignore it maybe the school will decide to ignore it too. If you are a truly great applicant they may choose to do that since you possibly didn't notice yourself. If you send an email to let them know you know your own mistake, they will be forced to acknowledge it and feel less comfortable interviewing you. They wouldn't want to be known as the institution that would tolerate a mistake like this.
 
thekay said:
don't listen to any of these people...they don't know what they're talking about. I recently got an interview to one of these schools and made the same mistakes as you did on the secondary 😀 i'm pretty sure it's common since many people "copy and paste" their essays
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Shh don't say that.

Obviously you are just naive and lying. There is no chance any medical school can *gasp* forgive someone for a mistake.

And lol @ the poster who said "They wouldn't want to be known as the institution that would tolerate a mistake like this"

Dramatic much?
 
Or they might have not just noticed it. I imagine there is a lot of skimming after you read thousands of essays
 
Jepstein30 said:
Don't bother reading the opinion of an actual adcom member. Not like his opinion matters. You are obviously more well informed.

Again, like Tildy said, it depends on the person reading the application and the context it was used in. If it wasn't "XYZ is my top choice" or "XYZ is amazing because of ABC" and was simply a "At XYZ, I hope to continue activity ABC" type mistake.. I don't see it being an auto-rejection.

An auto-rejection is hard to achieve IMO. We're talking about criminal history, extremely low stats (<3.0/25), incomplete application (blank essays, absolutely NO ECs) or the like. Writing the wrong school name in an answer to a general question such as "current activities" like the OP did is far from being in this group.

You are also weighing stats too heavily. There aren't "thousands of applicants just like you" because stats aren't the only things that matter. If everyone wrote the same essays, had the same ECs.. then yea, this is a killer because some other guy didn't make the same mistake. But if the school thinks you are a great fit based on your PS, ECs, LORs and stats.. I just can't see them changing their opinion heavily based on a reference to the incorrect school made in passing.

There's really no point in arguing this because not only will we never know what will happen to the OP (unless he gets an interview) but because it is also impossible to ever find out how every single adcom member views this mistake. Tildy is evidence that adcoms do view this mistake differently.. whether that's just him/her or applies to other adcoms.. we will never know. Neither of us have opinions that are worth more than a grain of salt in this regard.
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You're right. One adcom member's opinion makes all other opinions moot. I forgot that's how the internet works. 👍
 
MedPR said:
You're right. One adcom member's opinion makes all other opinions moot. I forgot that's how the internet works. 👍
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I think it's more of a "nobody's opinion matters except for an adcom" sort of thing. Because, let's face it, unless any of us have personally experienced this, you know nothing. Quit pretending you do 🙂

It's fine to express an opinion as an opinion. Don't express it like you know it's fact.
 
BigBlueBear said:
I think it's more of a "nobody's opinion matters except for an adcom" sort of thing. Because, let's face it, unless any of us have personally experienced this, you know nothing. Quit pretending you do 🙂

It's fine to express an opinion as an opinion. Don't express it like you know it's fact.
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I thought it was implied that all of us (besides the adcoms and a few others) are expressing opinions. Didn't know I needed to add a disclaimer for people to know that I have no proof for anything I say.
 
MedPR said:
+infinity.






Right.. That email would look something like this.

Dear XYZ Adcom (make sure you type the right school this time),

I've been using the same secondary essay for every school possible and when I copy and pasted it into your application, I forgot to change it to the correct school. I was just so overwhelmed by the complexity of copying and pasting that I completely forgot to put the correct school name.

Please forgive me,

I really want to attend your school.

Regards,

******ed pre-med.
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lolololololol
 
OP, just quit worrying and move on. If you get an interview, great! If not, oh well. It's really out of your hands at this point. There's really no point in worrying about it now.
 
dance13021 said:
OP, just quit worrying and move on. If you get an interview, great! If not, oh well. It's really out of your hands at this point. There's really no point in worrying about it now.
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I know, I'm trying. Thanks for your positive post! 👍
 
BiologyNerd said:
Just got the invite earlier this week. This is an update for the haters.
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Congrats!

I had an "oops" myself. One of my SOMs required a snail-mail submission of the secondary, which also meant submitting a check instead of online payment (like the others). I sent in the supplemental and forgot to include the check. The SOM assistant called me and let me send the check directly to her so she could put check and secondary together so it could go forward. I included a short, but sincere apology. I was very worried that my misstep would result in a rejection. Thankfully, I was invited to interview and was accepted.

I think many adcoms know that we're all human .....

:luck: :luck: :luck:
 
Doctor Strange said:
Okay, well it's also February. It probably still hurt you.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using SDN Mobile
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Probably, but how will we know?

I sent in a sincere apology/interest in the school. I made a mistake but I won't be the last person to do this either. This thread will be dug up in the future by people who make mistakes (i.e. people like you and me).

Ultimately, I hope this thread encourages people to double check because it was a stupid mistake.
 
BiologyNerd said:
Probably, but how will we know?

I sent in a sincere apology/interest in the school. I made a mistake but I won't be the last person to do this either. This thread will be dug up in the future by people who make mistakes (i.e. people like you and me).

Ultimately, I hope this thread encourages people to double check because it was a stupid mistake.
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it also helps to have a RELIABLE second set of eyes looking over your stuff before you hit "submit." A fresh second set of eyes can often catch those mistakes.
 
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