<p>After quickly skimming through the CommonApp, I found one place where essays are to be. In my opinion, a single essay isn't really enough to convey a breadth of ideas about anything, let alone if you want to write two contrasting essays (one with a personal, emotive voice and one with a professional, analytical tone) for colleges to review!</p>
<p>Am I missing some extra places that require essays, or do we really just get the one?</p>
<p>Once you add colleges, many colleges will give you supplemental essays/short answers they want. I believe Stanford had about 11 or so- so the essays can get excessive, but most colleges only have 1 or 2 supplemental writings.</p>
<p>But if they don’t, that’s it? I looked (again, briefly) at Columbia University’s supplemental materials, and there were only a couple of short-answer (like four line) responses that you were allowed.</p>
<p>In situations like those, you just have to work with what you can, then?</p>
<p>You’re the first student I’ve met (virtually or in person) who WANT to write more essays! These college essays aren’t the same as your school-assigned essays. Sometimes you write 20, 30, 40 drafts! You definitely DO NOT have enough energy to crank out tens or hundreds of quality essays–it’s just physically impossible. Work with what you can and make them stellar.</p>