<p>I did that, sara. lol. Recycling your old essays is a great idea (if it can be fixed).</p>
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<p>Even if you could do this, I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Colleges are going to want to see a full picture of you, so if you use one but not the other for certain schools it’ll seem like you’re leaving out part of you, you know? Schools like Yale (Harvard, Columbia, etc.) all have open-ended supplement essays that you can use the other one for. I dunno, I just don’t feel comfortable with the idea of giving different colleges different images of myself I guess.</p>
<p>I personally used one CommonApp essay for all 6 CommonApp schools I applied to. HYP received the same supplement essay. Northwestern and Stanford have specific prompts so those were different. Dartmouth didn’t need an extra essay :)</p>
<p>Looking at the common app this morning, I think everything is pretty doable. I’m surprised that some colleges don’t have a mandatory supplement…</p>
<p>Is it bad to write about tragedies in a commonapp essay?</p>
<p>I am planning to use the prompt about describing an influential person, and I want to write about a girl on my swim team who died in a car accident last year, but whose ideals of hard work and friendship have left a lasting affect on myself and my team… the focus of the essay would not be on the tragedy itself, but on how profound and positive of an effects she has had on our lives… Is this an appropriate topic? The last thing I want is for colleges to think I’m just trying to get pity points.</p>