<p>Speculating about why the tally dropped a tad Penn this year, Dean Eric Furda suggests that an extra essay might have had "a small impact."</p>
<p>So here's my question for CC members ...</p>
<p>Did you scratch any colleges off your list once you'd looked at the required essays and said to yourself, "I don't want to have to deal with that!"</p>
<p>And for those of you who did scrap a school because of a nasty essay requirement, did you replace it with another college with easier essay options (or fewer essays entirely) or did you just end up with a shorter college list?</p>
<p>Let me tell you one a person I know did not apply because of the complex supplement: Rice.</p>
<p>Another the person did not apply because of the unusual essay questions: Puget Sound.</p>
<p>Let me tell you another the person applied despite the complex supplement: Stanford.</p>
<p>IMHO, schools are becoming “too fancy” with the supplements. I went to a college fair attend by a few Ivies, a few national Unis. and a few top state unis. The admission reps all agree that in the end all universities want to know the same about you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your academics.</li>
<li>Your involvement with the community</li>
<li>Something special about you (background/special interests/habilities, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<p>If that is really true, why not the common app have three short essaays for these and that’s it. Stop with the madness of the complex/fancy/quirky supplements???</p>
<p>Now, altough reps did not say that, it seems to me schools also want to know one other thing:</p>
<ul>
<li>Why school X</li>
</ul>
<p>To me, that is the only question that is worth to be in a supplement. All the others could be in a “common” part of the common app.</p>
<p>My son, with MIT interests and MIT stats, looked at the MIT app and ran screaming from the room. He wasn’t sure about it because he wanted smaller schools anyway, and just ended up with a smaller application set. What really cut down his list was when he got the EA and rolling acceptances.</p>
<p>One problem with the admissions process is that many applicants look similar “on paper.” So colleges toss in extra essay assignments in a desperate bid to find nuggets of new information that will help them distinguish among their many seemingly qualified contenders. I also think that some admission officials believe that, by adding hoops for students to jump though, it can help them separate the truly committed candidates from those with a more casual interest and an itchy Common App trigger finger. (I tend to disagree with these approaches even though I can explain them. If I ruled the world, the admission process would be very different … much saner and less stressful.)</p>
<p>As for those “Why ‘X’ College?” essays … sometimes they can indeed prove that a student is perfectly suited for a particular school and has some significant reasons for making this choice. But, more often than not, the “Why ‘X’ College?” submissions look more like Mad Libs. That is, students write the same essay for each school and then plug in the appropriate adjectives … e.g.,* “I want to attend a ______ (large, small) college where the weather is ________ (hot, cold) and take advantage of the outstanding collection at _________ Library.” * Or I read diatribes pulled almost straight from the viewbook or Web pages (“Trinity College’s groundbreaking commitment to urban-global education and the Trinity faculty who are committed to collaboration with students on real-world research projects are very important to me, as is Trinity’s traditional New England-college with 100 green acres dotted with historic buildings …”).</p>
<p>So instead of requiring this sort of essay, I believe that it should be optional, and a better prompt would be something like this:</p>
<p>** If you have any truly compelling reasons for choosing this college, we are very eager to learn them. But if you are going to end up writing a bunch of b.s. because you think you have to do this essay, then it could work against you. ** ;)</p>
<p>Case in point: Elon University has never been on common app and has essays that often cannot be tweaked from the personal statement from common app…</p>
<p>This year, apps are up over 10%…so not sure an additional essay is a good reason for a drop…</p>
<p>Just an example, mind you…not the caliber of UPenn…but I’m sure others could point out similar examples.</p>
<p>None of my students chose schools or took them off the list because of extra or difficult essays…</p>
<p>My daughter actually enjoyed writing college essays, but when she looked at one of Wake Forest’s prompts (something like “Wake Forest is rethinking admissions. How has college admissions made you rethink yourself?”), she said, “I can’t believe this prompt,” and decided not to apply. That wasn’t the only reason, but I think it tipped her over. I agreed with her that it sounded too self-reverential: “How has applying to US changed YOU?” She didn’t think that applying to colleges had changed who she was in the least and that for a university to suggest that the process was so fraught with self-realization for applying students was over the top.</p>
<p>Two nephews only applied to Iowa State because there were no essays, and as in-state applicants they knew they were in. ISU publishes the minimum requirements for that right on its website.</p>
<p>Happykid is getting ready to transfer after finishing her AA this spring. The public in-state U has the option of submitting an essay on any topic of your choice, so she wrote a “why my major at your U” essay for them. Her other application is going to an artsy place with several artsy essay prompts. I am beginning to wonder if she will ever finish them! More essays than this would have killed us all. I’m glad her transfer list is only two schools long.</p>
<p>Yes, I didn’t apply to Marquette U Honors because their honors app was so daunting. It was like a research paper on technology, yuck… I really didn’t want to go there anyways, so it was kind of just because the school wasn’t high enough on my list compared to schools I was more interested in (that happened to have easier essays)</p>
<p>While S didn’t not apply to specific schools because of essays, at the end when we were looking for some easy apps to put in we eliminated choices that required too many essays.</p>
<p>Univ of MD has some of the strangest questions I’ve ever seen on a college app - what did you do last Tuesday? When I think environmentalism I think… How clever can you really be with those questions. In fact ds wrote to the environment question - I think it has taken the place of religion for many people.</p>
<p>Sally - how would you change the application process?</p>
<p>D did not do the supplemental for Michigan, it was low on her list and she was crunched for time. She had honors applications to fill out for 2 schools and did those instead.
I was kind of surprised with the two schools she used the common ap for both sent back supplementals… Why bother to put your school on the ap if you will require so much more info.</p>
<p>My daughter dropped Wake because of the essays. It was probably a combination of the essays combined with the interview. She came away from the interview less interested in Wake. The extensive essays on major, class requirements, and design our own curriculum were too much for her. It just didn’t rank high enough on her list. She did however turn around and write an additional four essays for a scholarship she was interested in. For a student and a parent it is a great litmus test.</p>
<p>Although I probably would have forced myself to eventually do them if I wasn’t accepted early action, I dropped Northwestern, Notre Dame, UNC, and UVA solely because of the essay component. Notre Dame’s and Northwestern’s essays actually weren’t that bad, however UVA and UNC’s were downright terrible.</p>
<p>S ran from the Univ of Chicago essay questions; thought they were odd. Tossed the app after a 30 second perusal. D loved the Univ of Chicago essay questions; thought they were so creative.</p>
<p>S2 didn’t apply to Grinnell, in part, I think, because the essay prompt on “the most memorable advice you ever received” didn’t click. I reminded him of all the memorable advice I’d given him over the years. Didn’t seem to help. :(</p>
<p>Did not apply to CMU/Cornell b/c of essays. Thought about dropping Rice because of its insane essays, but decided to apply anyway because it is one of my top choices.</p>