My son is working on his common app essay now and in it he mentions a summer program he took at an ivy league school, to which he is not even applying. The course helped him develop a skill that opened up opportunities for him to do good work for the needy. However, he does mention the school name about three times in his first paragraph. The essay then focuses on how he used the new skill and he school is never mentioned again. Should tone that down and now even mention the name of the school? Would admission officers be put off by a kid talking about another school?
I’m not sure I would waste all those words mentioning the name of the program over and over.
I recommend not mentioning the school - the essay about how he changed during that time and his new skills acquired at the “summer program” is fine. The AO doesn’t need to know which program and it might come across a bit pretentious (especially three times). There are other sections of the Common App where the specific program might be briefly mentioned (Activities section or Additional Information) if your son feels it is important.
I think the name of the school can be easily omitted, since the focus is on the program and not which school it was.
Yes, I don’t think mentioning the school is an intentional way to brag. He just says something like, “I took a course at School X,” and then later, “While at School X I learned X, X, and X,” and again, “When I returned from School X, I discover that I could do X.” This is all in the first paragraph. He is not a pretentious kid at all, but personally, I think this may come across as such. I agree it is an easy fix, but I wanted to get opinions before I make a suggestion to remove it. Trying to edit as little as possible.
The schools to which he’s applying won’t know he’s not applying to school X so the readers may see his essay as an attempt to curry favor at X and be less likely to admit him to their own schools. I would simply describe it as" a summer program in [area of study]."
i would reference only the title/name of the program and not provide the name of the university.