Physics + frisbee + warm weather ... ideas beyond UNC-Chapel Hill

[AustenNut]

If you haven’t been following along in the Parents of the HS Class of 2024 thread, you might want to read some of the latest posts from about here on: Parents of the HS Class of 2024 - #4279 by evergreen5

@citivas

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…

…and at least one of the schools on your list is mentioned as doing this.

@helpingthekid73

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.

The schools in the low probability bucket have a ton of demand from highly qualified students, and they definitely expect a lot from the applications. I would not have your son chew off more (in the way of apps) than he wants to chew. Generally, public schools and less selective schools will have lower requirements with respect to essays (i.e. for many, the Common App is sufficient, or there’s one “why us?” essay).