To anyone who feels they have written strong supplemental essays, or any AOs who can speak on this, what do you look for in strong supplemental essays? Is there anything that stood out to you when writing or reviewing essays? What was your largest resource? Any overall advice?
I specifically want to show my ED school some love by writing strong supplemental essays. I wanted to make sure I take the right steps to do so.
Thanks
Think about what else you want the school to know about you. These essays are additional space to tell them who you are. Use them wisely!
I had a question about supplementals, too. If you’re applying to a school who looks at the common app essay as well as their own supplemental essay, will they place equal weight on both, or do they pay more attention to one essay over the other?
Colleges know that your common app essay will be sent to multiple schools, so you should use this to create a general presentation of yourself that you want every college on your list to see. Your supplements, while equally important, explain why you want to go to that particular college. In your supplements, try to sound as though this is the ONLY school you are applying to, because you love it so much and would never even consider going anywhere else. One type of essay won’t be given more weight than another, though.
Supplements are school-specific so many schools (especially top ones) will focus on the supplements. That doesn’t mean to blow off your common app essay because they’ll definitely consider it too, but use the supplements to talk about you as a person and how you would be a good fit for the school you’re applying to.