And based on what Northwestern said at their info session…they love to see test scores if you have them but its ok if you don’t. Which is not quite the same as truly optional.
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Interestingly, NU’s website says it’s not requiring the Common App essay. Is that supposed to make it better? As if there’s a student out there somewhere thinking about applying to NU, but not applying anywhere else that requires the Common App essay?
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On second thought, if they wanted to trim down app volume, they would have added required essays. By adding two optional, perhaps they are trying to gauge interest.
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Ohhh…That makes a lot of sense. Good thought!
Am curious: does anyone find the wording of some of these essays off-putting? The “why us” questions make sense and are fine. But I can’t help but get annoyed by the “how will you enrich our environment?” question.
My kid plans to take lots of classes, figure out a career path, and meet new people. With any luck, he’ll do his own laundry and make his bed. Does that “enrich” a given campus? I dunno. He’s a nice kid but I doubt he’s going to significantly alter a campus of 5,000 students or more.
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Good one. Had to LoL at that as I have had similar thoughts before at some of these questions.
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In 2020 my son submitted a paper he wrote on the book Between the World and Me. When he applied we read optional to mean …if you would really like to attend please submit.
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I know. It’s ridiculous. I felt the same two years ago when S22 was answering these questions (a lot of colleges use the “how will you add to campus” questions).
I just looked at the dartmouth question, my! S is going to really have to spend time on all of these well before the RD deadline which was not our hope.
ASU want official test scores, which they consider in determining the amount of merit aid offered.
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Channeling my internal “holistic review” admissions officer . . . a lot of how people in college make meaningful new friendships is through shared activities, and it is a common stated belief among these colleges that can be particularly valuable when it involves people of diverse academic interests.
So I think from their perspective, they are hoping to find kids likely to get deeply involved in some activities, and who will not just focus on classes. Obviously there are many different ways a kid can do that, but they would like it to happen in some way, not none.
And we’ve had some very extended discussions here about whether that is a good or bad thing, including the implications it has for who gets admitted, where they end up, and so on. But, like it or not, this is typically a large component of the self-identity of very selective “holistic review” colleges, and for admissions purposes they are looking for kids who are enthusiastic about that sort of thing, who indeed appear to value it as much as they do.
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I’m trying not to look. S24 is getting inundated with emails from schools with their questions . . . ahhh.
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Just you all wait until you get to the tricky schools that promote they have no supplemental essay requirements then only after you student applies and gets their portal links from the schools days later does the portal have highly encouraged additional essays directly on the portal instead of the Common App…
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Yup, more like the parents will enrich the community with their tuition checks 
Maybe WE should be writing the essays 
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What schools are these so we can avoid them??? 
I can’t even get S24 to do the Common App essay 
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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.
Of the schools my S23 applied to, Hamilton and Colgate come to mind. But I suspect there are more.
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IIRC Hamilton and Grinnell send an extra essay after the “completed” application is submitted.
Ok, so relevant to our discussion about how optional doesn’t really mean optional: I have now seen a school list as optional connecting a ZeeMee profile to the application. I have never heard of it, but it is described as “a free service designed to help students bring their application to life by highlighting your personal story via photos, videos and text.”
I am super not interested in the prospect of submitting what seems to be Instagram but for College Admissions. While I assume that some gifted influencer types could make something of that, I think for many students it would not be helpful.
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I saw that too, University of Denver? I also wondered how that would work with the University of Denver application.
My S23 heard a lot about ZeeMee as a platform (controlled by a college) that allows applicants or admitted students to connect with each other. He is highly anti-social media, and would not have anything to do with it. S24 doesn’t feel the same way, but I feel really hesitant about the whole thing as part of an application.