essay

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>is it a bad idea to submit the MIT long essay as the common app essay to CalTech?</p>

2

<p>It it is. We're all well aware of the essays of the major choices, so it will be obvious that it was an essay intended for MIT.</p>

3

<p>oh man, seriously. that was my plan... anyway, if it shows a nice side of your personality, who cares WHAT college it was originally written for?</p>

4

<p>*nice is not really the word i mean. if it expresses your personality well, who cares? haha. maybe that's better.</p>

5

<p>I originally wrote my Caltech essay for the CommonApp (because it was my first choice so I wanted to spend more time on it), and then used bits and pieces from that essay on the MIT essay where the fit in. I think they just don't want you choosing "topic of your own" just so you can copy an essay that was clearly written for MIT. As long as you answer the prompt (with exception of "topic of your own"), I can't imagine why this would be bad. Of course, I don't see how you could copy word for word an MIT essay and have it fit one of the Caltech essays. If you do choose "topic of your own," and it is clear it was written for MIT, then I guess sonofsam says, they will know and they will care.</p>

6

<p>As far as caltech essays go, i'm writing their main long essay-passion for math/science solely for caltech. But yea i think i actually took one of my original ideas and tweaked it for MIT, so I'm just going to go back to the original idea and use that as topic of my choice.</p>

7

<p>I don't know whether Caltech likes copy-pasted essays, but I definitely know that when I submitted my Caltech essays as part of MIT application, I was rejected EA (of course, it could've been not because of the essays but because I forgot to change "Caltech" to "MIT" in some places, but MIT wasn't in my 3 top choices anyways :)). So, if you are like: "Well, if Caltech accepts me, it'd be cool, but if not, I won't be terribly upset", then go for it. :)</p>

8

<p>I used my National Merit essay as the Common App essay for Caltech, and I got in.</p>

<p>Actually, it might've been the other way around.</p>