I was looking at the Common App supplement for the University of Pennsylvania and read this:
6. (Optional) As the Admissions staff reads your folder, it is always gratifying for us to be able to match an application with tthe face of someone who we may have met during the year. To this end, please attach a recent photograph.
“Tthe” is not a typo on my part, I copied and pasted the text.
Does anyone find them wanting a recent photograph unsettling? Although I put myself out there, even using my face on a recent blog banner, I do. A face, perhaps, introduces bias.
Perhaps. It also humanizes the process, reminding the admissions staff that an application is more than a stack of papers, and represents an actual person.
That being said, I still think it’s creepy.
It’s pretty creepy. About the typos… the Common App seems to have several mistakes. In some boxes “X College” turns into “X College Admissions,” or maybe that’s just happening on my app…
Yeah Lily, I’ve noticed some other ones also. I’ll be sure to write them down the next time. It’s somewhat funny that these things are on a _college application_, something that gets someone into a _school_.