<p>Well, at least half my application list of schools has the classic Why (Insert name of institution here)... </p>
<p>The thing is, I've only had time to visit around 2 of those. All the other institutions I haven't visited.... So how on earth am I supposed to answer those kind of supplement questions in any kind of satisfactory way?</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, quality over quantity triumphs. It’s better to find two things you like about a school and really elaborate on them than to talk about ten things superficially.</p>
<p>If you don’t know why you want to attend a particular college, why would you apply? Colleges have Web sites. Learn something about the college, then focus on what appeals to you and/or would advance your personal goals. If you still come up dry after really learning what a college is all about… maybe you don’t want to go there after all.</p>
<p>As to the essay, it’s really asking two questions.
<p>Your answers to those questions can branch out all over the place, but first you have to know something about the college… its mission, programs, faculty, student body… all the great stuff you can find out by visiting its Web site and, oh, maybe entering its name on Google or Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Good luck and happy hunting!</p>
<p>well you’re applying for a reason.
and if its a good reason you should have a good answer.</p>
<p>if you can’t answer that question really look into why you’re actually applying to the specific school.</p>
<p>You don’t have to have visited an institution to know why you’d like to attend it. Why are you bothering to apply? Surely you have some thoughtful reasons. There are lots of details about colleges on their websites. Take the time to throughly review them. What majors do they offer? Who are their outstanding professors? What research, travel, and interesting coursework do they offer undergraduates? Use that info to say why you’d like to go to the college.</p>
<p>It sucks because my main reason to applying to one of my choices is the financial aid. I thought about writing about how much their financial aid means in terms of the opportunities I will be able to have now, then, and later on, but I’ve read you should try to stick to academics and such. I’ll have to come up with something.</p>
<p>If the only reason that you’d go to that college is the financial aid are you sure you’d really choose to go there? Have you thoroughly examined its website and reputation. Is financial aid the only thing the college has going for it? Remember that you may have to attend that college. Surely there are places you’d enjoy attending that also would be affordable for you.</p>
<p>Look, like the poster above, most of my colleges I choose because of their financial aid packages, their academic reputation, and their U.S. News Rankings (sadly enough… but don’t give me any crap for it, because we all know we do.) </p>
<p>I don’t give an ounce of thought into their “website”, and what they might claim on it. Because obviously, they would try to make themselves look as good as possible on there. </p>
<p>How on earth am I suppose to sugarcoat this for applications without flat out lying? I mean, I’ve only visited 2 out of 9 colleges on my list.</p>
<p>"look, like the poster above, most of my colleges I choose because of their financial aid packages, their academic reputation, and their U.S. News Rankings (sadly enough… but don’t give me any crap for it, because we all know we do.) "</p>
<p>Most people don’t do that. Many people really do look for colleges that fit their needs, needs that go beyond their U.S. News ranking. It makes sense to check financial aid if that’s a consideration. It also makes sense to take a close look at the offerings in subjects that you’re considering majoring in and activities that you’re considering pursuing. </p>
<p>Looking at their website would give you info about courses, clubs, dorms, the student body, alum, professors and a host of other information, lots of which is simply facts. For instance, you can typically find professors’ bios and even their curriculum vitae on colleges websites. Through those, you can learn about professors’ research areas, whether they’ve gotten awards, where they were educated, and what courses they teach. You often can find course syllabi on-line.</p>
<p>By using search engines, you can find much other information about colleges, including negative information that you won’t find on websites. </p>
<p>The only reason that you’d have to flat out lie is if you’re applying to colleges that you’d have absolutely no interest in except for their ranking and financial aid. However, given the large number of colleges in this country and the variety in their offerings, it’s hard for me to imagine that a student good enough to consider the U.S. news ranking would have to settle for applying to colleges that interest the student only because of their ranking and financial aid. </p>
<p>The colleges that care about demonstrated interest certainly can tell the difference between students who are applying only for ranking/financial aid and those that have genuine interest, and I’d bet it’s the latter category of student who have the advantage when it comes to admission and things like merit scholarships.</p>
<p>As for the idea that you’d have to lie on your app, if you haven’t bothered to get specific info, you wouldn’t be able to lie in a believable way about your interest. Without some facts to back them up, your statements would be obviously very general, so the college would realize that you were lying.</p>
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<p>I didn’t mean to quite come off that way. I have a clear first choice so if all things were equal, no, I would not go there. I do like that it’s urban, has great facilities, is academically world renowned, has many great programs, is a gateway for graduate school, offers plenty of non-classroom academic activities for undergraduates, has a grad school and an undergrad school, offers many or all of my prospective majors, is not too close or too far from home, and has an atmosphere that I like. So while it’s not perfect, I’d definitely be happy there. However, there is no truly outstanding reason that I like the school - nothing worthy of writing a “Why Yale?” essay about except for the FA. I like the school for a lot of general reasons - since I’m still very much undecided about my major and even my future plans, I haven’t zeroed in on any one factor. </p>
<p>What’s affordable to me is entirely dependent on FA. To be honest with you, not even community college is affordable since I just had to cancel a community college course I was going to take next year since my family and I didn’t have the $300 to spare. That said, I’m still pretty comfortable with the college financial problem because I’m competitive for a lot of scholarships and I’m almost a shoe-in for a full ride at my in-state university (which I don’t like for ANY reasons, but if it was a last resort…). But all of the schools on my list have excellent financial aid packages, even though my matches and my safety have no guarantees, just great reputations.</p>
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[QUOTE=mowmow721]
I don’t give an ounce of thought into their “website”, and what they might claim on it. Because obviously, they would try to make themselves look as good as possible on there.
[/quote]
College counselor: “I don’t give an ounce of thought into their ‘application,’ and what they might claim on it. Because obviously, they would try to make themselves look as good as possible on there.” 
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[QUOTE=mowmow721]
How on earth am I suppose to sugarcoat this for applications without flat out lying?
[/quote]
Ummm… don’t? If you’re not willing to find out anything deeper about the college than finaid, prestige, and USNWR rating… I’d suggest you target colleges that don’t give a rat’s patootie about “fit.”</p>
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Everybody wants to play with the kid who’s popular and has the coolest stuff. Why should this kid want to be your friend?
Which ones sound interesting to you? Or does the idea of having so many options to choose from appeal to you the most?
Which ones might you take advantage of, and how and why?</p>
<p>If I may be so bold as to give you an assignment, applicannot – sit down and spend a couple of hours (yes, two hours) finding out about Yale online. Look through the list of student organizations ([Student</a> Organizations | YaleInfo](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oldYaleInfo/studentorgs.html]Student”>http://www.yale.edu/oldYaleInfo/studentorgs.html)), find a couple that look interesting to you, and see what they’re up to. Read some of the more than a dozen student publications (Google “Yale student publications”) to see what’s important to current students. Read some of the press releases (opa.yale.edu) to find out what kind of research and other interesting stuff is going on there. Poke around! Let yourself wander a bit as things spark your interest. If you spend that much time really finding out about the place, I think you can probably find something (or somethings) that really catches your attention and makes you want to be there – not just be paid to go there. Then you’ll have something to write about.</p>
<p>Oh, and if the money is the main thing, and you’re really low-income and not already familiar with [url=<a href=“http://questbridge.org%5DQuestBridge%5B/url”>http://questbridge.org]QuestBridge[/url</a>] – might want to spend some time there as well. Good luck!</p>
<p>Oh, so I’m applying to 9 colleges, and ALL of them are supposed to perfectly “fit” me WHILE being prestigious enough to merit an application?.. </p>
<p>Because obviously, if I’m not sure how it will “fit” me it’s better to just settle for the local community college, right… hilarious. But I will give poking around their student organization list a try, and see if something there interests me.</p>
<p>No, they aren’t supposed to perfectly fit you. In fact, anyone is living in fairytale labd who thinks that there’s a college that’s really a perfect fit.</p>
<p>All you need to do on the app is provide some thoughtful specifics about your reasons for applying. You needn’t gush about how it’s a perfect fit. Admissions officers have the good sense to know that no college is a perfect fit for anyone.</p>
<p>Even places like HPY have their flaws as does everything in life. If I were interviewing a student who said that my alma mater, H, was a perfect fit and then gushed about how absolutely 100% perfect H was, I would know that the student had a lot of maturing to do, was handing me a line of bull or had flawed critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>Thanks, geek_mom. I am familiar with Questbridge but I am not sure I’ll use it. The schools I most want to attend are not on the list and the schools on the list that I like are sometimes binding.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. If you’re smart enough to go to Yale, then you’ll be able to come up with something intelligent to say regarding why you’re applying, even if it’s not true.</p>
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<p>YES!!! (For your top choices, at least). You know, some don’t require this essay, so you don’t have to ask that question.</p>
<p>Let me give you my list of top choices:
Cornell
NYU
Georgetown
Boston College
USC
UPenn</p>
<p>Most of my colleges have a combination of these things:
D1 sports (basketball or football)+middle to large school+good finance and economics departments+good pre-law and pre-business departments+offers an additional three or four business law courses+strong liberal arts foundation along with practical knowledge in business+humanities+urban campus and/or has very strong regional influence (alumni network) for summer internships+a math team+a decent music program+a group experience, not an individual experience+hot Asian chicks (this one I mentioned a few times for the sake of humor). Other factors made one more perfect than the other, but I would have been very happy at any of my top schools.</p>
<p>For Cornell, my top choice, I wrote a flashback about why Cornell AEM was the perfect choice for me because it is an integral program where I could take classes at both CAS and ILR, courses that would help develop my critical thinking and communication skills. I also talked about the availability of summer internships at Wall Street, and how I went to contact the pre-law advising department to help me achieve my goals. I talked about how I was able to use those to get into Harvard Law School and at Harvard AS for Law and Economics. I couldn’t (and didn’t) do visits until after I sent in application, and I didn’t quite get in, but I showed how I would be a good fit with Cornell despite all of that.</p>
<p>OP, don’t try to get defensive, because the people here have given you VERY good advice that you won’t find at most high schools. Northstarmom and geek_mom are very right.</p>
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<p>If you’re smart enough to go to Yale, then you should be smart enough to figure out how happy you’ll be at Yale, prestige aside. I would not be happy at Yale, Harvard, or Stanford (which used to be my top choice before I looked at the details) type schools because the faculty-student ratio (1:3, or something ridiculous like that) is way too low for my taste. I’m used to working in groups and manage projects, so that “individual experience” would just have turned me off from school in general. Precisely the reason why I could not write a good Why essay for Yale or Harvard, and precisely why I did not care if it is good or not. Prestige is just that, prestige. If you cannot find enough substance in that prestige to benefit you, it’s not worth applying to.</p>
<p>vinnyli I think you’re exaggerating a bit with the student to faculty ratio. I don’t think any school has a student to faculty ratio THAT low. Maybe 1:7 or somewhere around there.</p>
<p>To answer the original poster’s question: I applied to 9 schools in the US as well and there was no way I was writing completely different “Why ________?” essays for each one either. So I did up a general introduction talking about academics, student organisations, campus, weather etc and then for each school I finished off the middle to the end of the essay with details specific to the school. So no matter how you take it you’re going to have to do your research. Thankfully the schools I applied to were somewhat similar so having a common introduction worked for me.</p>
<p>vinnyli nobody needed your “fit” spiel(that’s been posted on this site thousands of times anyway). some students will be happy wherever they go to college. some students don’t care about being happy. you =/= everybody else.</p>