Updating an already submitted graduate school application

Question

I submitted a graduate school application last week for a Math PhD program at a well-known university in the US. They asked me to submit a PDF list of all the courses that I have taken. I uploaded a list with all the information they asked for, except for the description of each course I simply provided a link to a page on the university's website which gives a detailed syllabus for that course.

In hindsight, I realized that my application might be printed out and hence the links would be useless. But the admissions committee can still get a sense of what the courses are about from the course name and textbooks used (I provided these).

Should I go back and re-upload my document to include more explicit descriptions? Their application seems to allow post-submission uploads for Fall semester grades and miscellaneous documents (which this PDF list of courses falls under).

There are two reasons why I'm hesitant about doing this.

• They never explicit said that we can submit anything after the deadline. So I suspect that if upload a document past the deadline, they might hold it against me.
• I come from a pretty well-known undergraduate institution, so I don't think a PDF list of courses will change the admissions outcome. I.e. it is not worth the effort.

I could email them, but I'm quite certain they will simply reply with a generic response such as "You cannot change your submission after the deadline."

This might be another case of the so-called "applicant's hypochondria", so I apologize if this is not a good question. I would appreciate hearing someone else's perspective.

Answer 1

First, in this day and age, I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that professors are printing out candidate files to read them. Every position from PhD to postdoc to professor has hundreds of applicants and thousands of pages.

Second, I echo Buffy's advice that there is really no harm in asking the chair of the search committee if that was an acceptable way to provide the course descriptions. The OP wrote:

I could email them, but I'm quite certain they will simply reply with a generic response such as "You cannot change your submission after the deadline."

I don't think that's justified. If it will make their lives easier they probably would allow such a change. Anyway, there's no harm in asking and it might even help you as it shows you are very serious about the application rather than submitting it unthinkingly to a zillion places.