So, I spent hours working on my Common App, and just when I thought I was ready to hit submit, I realized I had overlooked some pretty common mistakes. One that really tripped me up was not properly formatting my essays. I thought I was all good, but I didn't double-check how the document appeared after the upload. Long story short, I had stray formatting that made my essay look unprofessional.
Another mistake? Not using the character limits wisely. I crammed so much into my extracurricular descriptions that I ended up sounding like I was just listing keywords—definitely not the best look!
Here’s my tip: once you're done, get feedback from a friend or even a teacher and ask them if anything sounds off. It really helped me catch stuff I missed!