I agree with @lindyk8 -
I’m sure that nobody who wished they had extra time would want to really go over their actual application in depth. We all thought that Nov 30th was the deadline, set in stone. We all (or the vast majority of us) examined our application well enough to ensure that we hadn’t made a massively detrimental mistake (although mistakes do occur, but we are able to email admissions, so minor mistakes are no big deal) - anyway, what I’m getting at is that the PS is all that people are really not confident about when it comes to their application, and that is what they want to go over.
My thoughts on that:
1, the PS is not the most important part of the application. It is mostly about GPA, ECs, GE completion, etc. The PS is a big factor for some majors, such as Haas at Cal or apparently the College of Chemistry at Cal, but for most of us, it's a minute factor, at least in the grand picture. It is less of a factor for admissions for transfer students than it is for transfer applicants.
2, it's not a formal essay. They don't care if you make grammatical mistakes. They will not reject you for misspelling a word. It's not that sort of essay. Through these essays, they want to see your demonstrated passion for your major, how you've grown as an individual, and overall, what you're like. Yes, revising the PS can articulate certain points better, but by submitting a PS, you are articulating these things. They don't expect you to be the next Nabokov. It's not supposed to be a memoir, it doesn't have to be perfect. They just want a picture of you, and if you've written the essay at all, then you are providing such an image.
- I understand that we stress out about it. I'm a fairly good writer, yet a huge perfectionist, and my PS was far from perfect. I did the very best that I could, though, given the amount of time I had from when I started. There's no point in dwelling on minute details about the PS (assuming these are things that people would wish to go back and edit) now. We've all gone through the process, we've all done our best, and it's all over now. Our applications cannot ever be 100% perfect - but 100% perfect isn't the admissions criteria, they know we're flawed human beings who can only do so much, and they'll look at our applications accordingly. It's not going to be perfect - the way the PS is set up, it CANNOT be perfect (unless you're Nabokov).
I, for one, know that my application wasn’t perfect, but I did the best I possibly could have, and I wouldn’t edit it, given the chance. My stats are what they are, my ECs are what they are, my PS prompts are written about what they are, and there’s no point in editing anything. I’m still anxious, and I’ll be nervous as all hell when Spring rolls around, but we can only wait, and that’s all we should do.
And, also, the people applying through the extended time are likely going to be borderline applicants, primarily. It’s good that they’re trying to encourage those who would not regularly apply to apply.