<p>Are essays used for scholarships or are they purely for admissions? If I am an auto admit is there a point to writing the third optional essay (in the hopes that it raises my chances for scholarships) or is there no point?</p>
<p>I have heard that it is important to write the third essay if you feel you are in scholarship contention. If you are up against another person with similar stats and they show more interest in the school by writing the third essay, you know exactly who is going to be getting the scholarship.</p>
<p>But regardless, scholarships are already hard to come by anyways. So just write the essay so that you know you did everything humanly possible to get one.</p>
<p>you REALLY need to do the essay, because they use it for your college of whatever (engineering, liberal arts, etc) AND your actual major… if its up to your major to give a scholarship and they have you and someone else that are pretty much the same academically why wouldnt they pick the one who to the extra step ya know?</p>
<p>Would any of you have any suggestions about how to approach that third essay. Should it be specifically directed at the students choice of major and goals or should it provide general information about the student. Any thought?</p>
<p>I talked about how I am diverse in mine (main topic was something that can not be seen in test results) since so many colleges pride themselves on diversity and look for that in a student.</p>
<p>^ I am fairly sure I did something very similar for mine.</p>
<p>on my daughters third essay, she wrote about the top 10% rule. And the fact that her high school did not weight Dual Credit & AP courses any more than regular classes. She took all AP and Dual Credit courses - which she felt gave her a better edge in college as opposed to taking the easy way to top 10% like many of her classmates. She ended up being in top 12%.<br>
In this way, she did get to explain a bit about not being top 10%. She was also trying to get in the college of architecture, which is just behind Mays in hard to gain acceptance.
She did get into the college of architecture with early admission - so who knows, essay C may have really helped her.</p>
<p>I totally agree with others who said you definitely need to do the third essay. Why not? You could be leaving scholarship money on the table, otherwise. If you don’t end up with any scholarship money, you will have only lost the relatively small amount of time it took you to write the essay. </p>
<p>My son wrote about his life, in general. His family, his community, his school, etc. It was basically a well-written, fairly concise, and very pointed “window” on what his life is like. It had nothing to do with any of his accomplishments or intended major. He was awarded some really generous scholarships.</p>
<p>Truly – at every college to which you apply – I strongly believe that, in general, your readers are going to be looking for something that reveals what makes you tick, as opposed to yet another essay about “why I’m so good/accomplished/worthy.” First of all, they already have all of your accomplishments in another format – all throughout your application. Secondly, they want to really feel like they know you – they want to read something different and more stimulating than “the usual,” which they receive year after year.</p>
<p>I would recommend writing about whatever strikes your fancy – for nearly every scholarship essay you encounter at every school to which you apply. I strongly believe that those make the best essays and earn the best awards. It’d be best if you didn’t try to follow a formula.</p>
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<p>^Let me clarify that statement a little. You DO need to follow the prompt, of course. If the prompt asks for something specific, you should give them what they asked for. But I believe last year’s TAMU Essay C prompt was something fairly generic, like (totally paraphrased), “What other personal information would you like to share? What events or experiences have shaped you?” Well, what I suggested in my post above DOES answer that prompt.</p>