<p>So I have to send in my Yale application by November 1 and part of the application involves the common app essay. I was wondering if it was possible for me to send a different essay in my common app to yale than to columbia (ex. send the common app to yale with one essay attached and the one to columbia with another one) I'm not sure if my question makes sense but if anyone could help me, that would be great!</p>
<p>Yes, look in the CA instructions about making alternate versions after you have submitted to at least 1 school. They tell you that you ‘shouldn’t’ change essays for different schools, but I disagree, you should customize essays (or anything else in your app) as much as necessary for each school.</p>
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<p>I thought rule #1 of a good essay was that it’s not written about what admissions officers supposedly want to hear. It should just reveal something about you.</p>
<p>Going by that logic, I feel like an attempt to cater an essay to a specific school is a mistake.</p>
<p>The one exception would be a school like Princeton. One of their supplemental essay prompts overlaps with the Common App. So an applicant may have written the Princeton prompt, liked it the best, and ended up using it on the common app for the other schools (but still having a separate common app essay for Princeton).</p>