CO School of Mines Essay?

Son is completing the CO Mines application now. Using the Golden Ticket email they say essay is optional. The app has 2 essay questions so he’s wondering does he have to do those 2 (thinking maybe there are more essay questions that he’s not seeing?) or are these 2 questions the optional questions?

Also, is it beneficial to go ahead and do the optional essay questions or does it not really matter? Thank you!

Yes, I would like the same essay clarification as BigRedLongHorn. Also, is there a minimum or maximum number of words? Thank you!

We attend the Mines info session last year and they said while optional, they give another opportunity for the admissions officer to say yes. Having said that, we know several people with the Golden Ticket last year that did not complete essays and were admitted. FYI they were very strong applicants. If my child was at all borderline in any area and Mines was a top pick, I’d recommend that complete the essays. Having said that, there’s an excellent chance my S21 will not complete them as he’s not 100% sold on Mines and will roll the dice that he can get in without them.

When my nephew applied 6 years ago, they said they didn’t put much stock in the essays (and didn’t have any at that time) because they weren’t sure they were written by the applicants (or heavily edited). Maybe things have changed?

We attended a recruited athlete presentation and the AO said she strongly recommended writing the essays if you want merit aid.

Thank you for the replies! He went ahead and answered the 2 essays, but he didn’t write very long essays (didn’t see a minimum anywhere).

2 years ago an AO from Mines was at our high school for a college night and when the question to the panel about essays came up all the other colleges talked about how they put a lot of weight on the essays and the Mines rep flat out said we don’t really use the essays, we look at test scores and grades. Now granted, this year there are quite a few kids who couldn’t get test scores, so maybe they are looking at essays more.

I think this is very confusing and may cause some applicants to skip the two personal statements in the app. There is a video if you dig way into the website in which an admission rep basically explains that the two ‘essay’ questions are considered ‘personal statements,’ not essay questions, and that they would like applicants to complete those two ‘personal statements.’ As an applicant, I would have thought, “oh, there are the two essay questions I get to skip.” My son called admission to calrify whether the two personal statements on the app should be skipped and the admissions rep didn’t even explain it clearly. In short, do the two personal statements on the app.

My D just got her acceptance. She wrote about 3 sentences for each “essay”. Don’t sweat it.