<p>I am starting to think about preparing for college essays but..
I am kind of lost here.
So, if you want to apply to Harvard, you write one for common App which is 500 words and then have option to write another within 500 words for Harvard only?
Does that work for other schools too?
So, you are submitting total of TWO essays of 500 words only???</p>
<p>The common app one goes to all the schools which are part of it, and then for each individual school they have their own requirements. Some ask you for more essays, some don't.</p>
<p>i'd write about 2 - 3 plus the extra ones that colleges like Stanford and UChicago ask for, that away, if you have a total of around six, you have a variety to send to different colleges. also, i find that the UChicago creative prompts lead to pretty good essays.</p>
<p>now that i look back at it, i am soo glad that there was a common app, it saves so much time especially when you are applying to 10+ schools</p>
<p>I wouldn't look at your essays that way. You have to take each individual essay and treat it as it's own. I would look at the applications/commonapp supplements to see what extra ones you have to write, but don't just write 6 essays and then stretch them around so they can fit certain questions and you don't have to write more essays. Readers can tell when they are being shortchanged as they read thousands of essays every year.</p>
<p>I would only write a second (optional) essay if there is something significant about yourself that was not addressed or demonstrated in the first one. And it is vital to treat each essay as an important opportunity to share an aspect of your true self in a way that will make the admissions committee take notice. With essays, it is absolutely quality over quantity.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I wouldn't look at your essays that way. You have to take each individual essay and treat it as it's own. I would look at the applications/commonapp supplements to see what extra ones you have to write, but don't just write 6 essays and then stretch them around so they can fit certain questions and you don't have to write more essays. Readers can tell when they are being shortchanged as they read thousands of essays every year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>um.. i don't think i implied that you stretch essays around to fit certain questions. if there are different prompts, you should fulfill them, but generally if your options are open like in the Common App, it's good to have a variety to choose from, and also so that one bad essay doesn't ruin it for you.</p>
<p>hmm, i only wrote two college essays last year. one was the personal statement i used from the national merit scholarship thing and the other was a "Why (Insert Random School Name Here" essay. i crafted one and/or both to fit 11 different applications. and i got into the majority of my schools. so basically crafting to fit different essays isn't necessarily a bad thing. and it saves a LOT of time.</p>
<p>Oh,,,what about the number of essays you have to actually SUBMIT for each college?
Does it differ?
or is it always TWO ? (as in one from Common and one from Supplementary)?
I visited a few college websites but I don't see any of thier OWN essay prompts yet.
Maybe they come out later?</p>
<p>hmm, it does differ. with the common app it is generally two. but for Johns Hopkins, they have different supplementary essays, which i seriously spent maybe 20 minutes on. and i know Northwestern has all their silly little short answers, which are all 50 words, so they are not too bad.</p>
<p>It really depends on the college if I remember correctly I'm pretty sure that I didn't have to do any supplementary essays for BC, Cornell, Dartmouth, Drew, TCNJ, and Williams. Harvard and Yale were optional so I didn't really bother. Harvey Mudd required one. Princeton and Tufts required two short essay prompts, so it really depends on the certain college in question.</p>