admission essays

Applying to College
1

<p>Do you have to write a different admissions essay for every college you want to go to? And how does common applications fit into this?</p>

2

<p>For schools that use the common app you write 1 application essay which is uploaded to commonapp and sent to all the colleges you apply to through common app. Some schools have supplement essays which usually vary from school to school and for those you need to upload the required supplemental essay(s) and those are sent only to that college.</p>

3

<p>do the topics change year to year for the essays? And when should you start writing? Thanks.</p>

4

<p>Sometimes, but the questions are usually the same, maybe worded a bit differently.</p>

<p>You should start around August, when commonapp opens with them although there is no rush if you are applying regular decision (early January deadline) but definitely start as early as you can If you are applying early decision (early November deadline) and plus you will still have school, extracurricular activities, etc.</p>

5

<p>The topics usually don’t change; even when they do, they don’t change very much.</p>

<p>You don’t need more than a few weeks to write the essays, but starting earlier can never hurt.</p>

6

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<p>Once you submit the CA to one school, you have the ability to make up to 10 different versions of the CA, including changing the main essay:</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/commonapp/docs/alternateversiontechnologyfaq.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/commonapp/docs/alternateversiontechnologyfaq.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The CA will give you a warning about only using one main essay, and it’s up to you to determine what you want to do about this. I have see no problem making alternate versions with different essays because:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The CA is supposed to expedite the admissions process for schools and students, not impose their own rules.</p></li>
<li><p>Schools don’t care if you use a different main CA essay for them than you did for another school.</p></li>
<li><p>Due to the range in supplemental essays required by different schools, it makes sense to have 2-3 essays that can be used in as either the main CA essay or one of the supplemental ones.</p></li>
</ol>

7

<p>Thanks to everyone for their helpful info. Another question is do all or most ivy leagues use common app? And what would a sample prompt from last year?</p>

8

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<p>While the answer is yes, I urge you to go to the college websites and read their Admissions page, the information is all there.</p>

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<p>Same for the CA, go to their website, it is up and going for this cycle, you can find the prompts there.</p>