It really is discouraging. You can’t reuse any of these essays since they are so odd (Dartmouth and northwestern and Princeton and Stanford all 3-6 essays and they are all different!) and when the kids are still taking a full course load and extracurriculars it just makes no sense. And how much do they actually look at them. For 2-3 seconds each? I guess it weeds out the kids who just press submit.