I know Amherst allows you to submit a graded paper in lieu of a supplemental essay.
I’m a little worried that submitting the paper will make it look like I don’t care enough about Amherst to write the additional essay. Truth be told, Amherst is a top choice of mine but I don’t want to write another essay if I don’t have to.
Do you think one option is favored more or less by admissions officers, or are they treated equally? Does anyone know if one of the options is more popular among applicants/accepted students?
I suppose it’s too late for this round, but for future reference my daughter submitted a graded paper and it didn’t hurt her. In fact, I think the paper was a testament to the rigor of her school and in particular, her teacher. She did not receive an A; I can’t remember the grade but I remember it wasn’t an A. It had some nice commentary on it by the teacher though.
@allima I didn’t say that. I’m sure it is looked at positively if it’s a fantastic paper! I’m only telling you our experience- My daughter’s paper was not a solid A and she is now a sophomore at Amherst. I’m sure they are looking for many things in the writing. My daughter’s school graded papers extremely hard. She had many A papers in creative writing but she did not have solid A papers in critical writing. Since the common app writing is an example of creative writing, she wanted to submit this other work. There is no rule or one right way.
I suspect that the advantage of submitting a graded paper is that Amherst can be reasonably sure that this represents your actual work, rather than a personal essay which was massaged for weeks by your parents and an admissions consultant, contains about six of your original words, and is not representative at all.
@ThankYouforHelp
Perhaps so. Reasonable point. However, in this case, neither my husband nor I read any of my daughter’s essays. She wouldn’t allow us. We didn’t hire any admissions consultant with either of our children and she didn’t write the essay in English class. I believe her school’s guidance counselor may have given it a quick read but that’s it.
It may be that it’s hard for Admissions to compare one English teacher at one school and another English teacher at a different school. The schools may be of different rigor to begin with, and then some teachers may grade inflate while another may be a hard ass.
I doubt Amherst cares a fig for what the particular teacher’s grades or comments were. They care that it has the teacher’s writing on it not for the content of those comments, but because those comments verify that this particular paper is the one that the student actually wrote and turned in for grading - this is the real work product of that student that they can expect to see in the future.
I think more schools should take this approach - dump one of the essay questions for a graded paper.
It’s good that your daughter wrote her own essays, most do I’m sure, but unfortunately, many others are hiring “essay consultants” and ultimately turning in essays that aren’t remotely their own work, especially applicants to extremely competitive schools like Amherst. It’s a huge business in my area.
