<p>I'm going to drop my Dartmouth App in the mail today, I was just wondering if I should include a supplementary essay. Would it be beneficial? Or does it really matter? Any other tips would be much appreciated before I make the final drop! Thanks guys</p>
<p>if you are a good writer, i think an extra one to express your interest wouldn't hurt :)</p>
<p>Do we just send in the essay? I already turned in my Dartmouth App, But can I just get a letter - put my additional essay in there.. and mail it off?</p>
<p>I wasnt sure if we could have more than 1 essay (the common app).. for dartmouth</p>
<p>Yes, anything that helps give the adcoms a better picture of you as a person will help. But don't send in a random essay just for the heck of it, or because you feel you're lacking in another area. That's just overkill. Send an essay that complements the rest of your application. Like, if you emphasize your killer instict and sharp, businesslike attitude in listing your love for debate and mock trial in extracurriculars, an essay about volunteering at an animal shelter might soften you a bit. But as always, be honest and careful of cliches!</p>
<p>My major is Econ, but if i send in an essay about my rural town and volunterring and how it made me more aware of assimilation and my town's history?</p>
<p>I don't know enough about you to say, but you should ask yourself three things:</p>
<p>1) Is this relevant to the rest of my application?</p>
<p>2) Is this fake?</p>
<p>3) Is the essay well-written?</p>
<p>For #1, if the entire app you don't mention anything about your awareness of assimilation and you're town's history and then there's a random essay in there about it, it looks kind of weird. This segways perfectly into #2, which is: do you really even care about your volunteering? No, like really? Like you've been doing this since you were 10 and have all these great relationships with the old people you take care of and even put together a town fundraiser to build a nursing home and gave a speech about it at your school and got funding from a national organization and so on? Because if you don't really care, the jig is up. Admissions officers are pretty good at sniffing out fake interests. The language you use, the specifics you go into, the time you've put into it, are all dead giveaways. Finally, a well-written essay is always better than a poorly-written one. Of course, often an essay that comes from the heart will be better-written than a fake one, just by nature of being genuine. But stuff like grammar, style, prose, can be a little trickier. For that you might need to enlist the help of a trusted adult to look over.</p>
<p>In general the first essay should be enough. If something else is really important to you, perhaps you should've written about it in your main essay. 1 extra essay probably wouldn't hurt, but it won't necessarily help either (look at raspberrysmoothie's advice)</p>
<p>Hey, I'm so glad I stumbled upon this thread b/c this was my concern!! I sent in my Dartmouth application a little while back. I was reluctant to submit it w/o an additional essay. I'm in the process of finishing up all of my other RD essays (some required and some additional). I'm coming up with some GREAT ideas. These essays really seem to highlight my passions and my character much more than my common application did. Is it possible to submit one of them online (to Dartmouth Admissions) somehow as an addendum to the application I sent in, back in mid-December? Can I e-mail it to the Admissions Office or should I type it up and send it via regular mail? I do believe that an additional essay for Dartmouth would be VERY beneficial to my application. If anyone has any insight and information for me, PLEASE let me know ASAP as the deadline is approaching. Thanks! Good luck to everyone! Have a Happy New Year! :)</p>