<p>D applied EA to Georgetown and was deferred.</p>
<p>Now that she has worked on her essays for other schools, she realizes that her essays for Georgetown could be better. She would like to fix this.</p>
<p>What is the best way to go about this? Georgetown requires three essays (significance of an EC, essay that best describes you, why Georgetown). She would probably want to change her answer to the first two completely and leave the third one alone.</p>
<p>Should she withdraw the old essays or just submit new ones and if so, how? Should she explain why she wants to do this, and if so, what should the explanation be? Will this sort of thing hurt her application?</p>
<p>Parents, what do you think makes sense here? Have any of you ever dealt with this before?</p>
<p>Hi Cindy,</p>
<p>The best advice I’ve ever heard on this is to get her guidance counselor involved. Before sending anything at all, ask the counselor to call Georgetown’s Admissions Office and politely inquire about your daughter’s application. Ideally, the GC should express just a little surprise that this outstanding young lady wasn’t immediately accepted, then ask what might be done to strengthen her application. You and your daughter shouldn’t be involved in the conversation, but should ask the GC to take notes and tell her the specifics.</p>
<p>Admissions folks will often be more frank with GCs about this than they will with parents or students (perhaps because of the Ad/GC relationship, or perhaps because they don’t anticipate an emotional argument). I’m not speaking from personal experience here, but I have one positive anecdote to share: On the Harvey Mudd forum, an applicant who took this advice returned to report that he’d received specific feedback on his application as well as an exact list of supplementary materials to submit (an extra essay and a rec letter from an English teacher). In his case, this also removed the awkwardness of what to do, because the Admissions folks then anticipated his extra submissions.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>Oh, cool! Good advice, and in the nick of time.</p>
<p>School starts tomorrow, so I’ll have her get right on this.</p>
<p>Many thanks!!!</p>