<p>Well, I submitted my applications a few days ago (RD) to Reed and Oberlin and took several hours to write each supplemental essay. Somewhere online I read that applicants tend to regurgitate the brochure in writing these sorts of essays, so I wanted to completely avoid that. Instead, for Reed, I wrote about my intellectual passion and curiosity, since these are two of Reed's most important values as an institution; however, I didn't mention any specific departments, professors, unique aspects of campus life, etc. And if that sounds like I'm straying too far from the path, in writing my Oberlin essay, I literally went on a rant expressing my distaste for cars and how I enjoy posing new ideas for alternative transportation. I mentioned Oberlin once in the essay, in my conclusion. I wrapped up the essay by saying that Oberlin is a great place for experimentation and tinkering with norms. But again, that's it. I didn't mention the campus, environment, all the cool aspects of Oberlin, etc. [sigh] Unless I can email the person reading my application with clarification, since it isn't too late, I'm afraid I'll just have to accept that I won't get in to these schools......Oh well.</p>
<p>Just let it be. </p>
<p>I felt the same way for umich, I wrote about how my city barely ever has spoken word programs lol. But I ended up getting in, so don’t stress it</p>
<p>I’m sure you’ll be fine! I feel like we have more freedom than people talk about on here in the “Why” college essays. It seems a bit ridiculous to me that I need to unnecessarily insert super-specific information about a college just to show I’ve done research or am truly interested. Two colleges I applied to had a “Why” essay and what I did in those supplements sounds pretty similar to you. If the fill-in-the-blank format is what they want, then I’m probably screwed too! </p>
<p>Um, wait, you’re not supposed to do that? Because that’s what I’ve done too. I haven’t sent mine in yet but still. I wrote one of them about space travel and the other about sustainability -_-</p>
<p>If this reassures you, that was basically my Tufts essay. Everyone that read my essay really enjoyed it and I ended up getting accepted into Tufts ED. I can’t speak as to whether or not it will work for everyone and every school, but I think this formula works well in general for “Why (insert university here).”</p>
<p>Start off with a point about your life (some hobby, some personality trait of yours), develop it a little further with another sentence or two, and then for the last two to three sentences relate this interest to the school you’re applying to. It doesn’t matter what your interest is in my opinion, as long as it is genuine. </p>
You’ll be fine. I did better (in terms of admissions) where I talked more about myself than splurge about the school in the “why” essays. The rationale is that they already know alot about themselves, but not alot about you, so they want to see if YOU are a good fit.
What I did in my JHU essay was talk about why math and science are my favourite subjects, and how I wanted to study applied math to explore other fields but still stay close to math. I then went to talk about how they offered many interdisciplinary courses such as, so and so. I also talked about a specific part of the curriculum I would like to take advantage of( talked about financial math). I am applying rd so we’ll see if this works in april but I think this is what they mean when they ask you to list specific things about the program.
They already will know about you from CA essay and LOR’s so just spend a para. talking about your goals or what you want in your undergrad education and then talk about how the school will help you get what you want.
IMO the key thing you want to write about is how you will USE the knowledge you gain to better society.
I feel the mistake most people make in these "Why’ essays–besides not even answering the prompt–is coming off too selfish or too into themselves.
e.g. " XXX university has great research and internships opportunities that I would love to take advantage of during my senior year."
@micmatt513 The difference is, you applied ED, which is the ultimate demonstration of interest. If you are applying RD while not referencing anything specific within the app, you likely won’t fare as well.
@calicash – I think that it still applies, even to people applying regular decision. I think your essays should only be about you. They should try to reveal as much about you as a person as possible. Obviously people shouldn’t try to make themselves appear disingenuous or force a characteristic about themselves that simply isn’t true, but being genuine is the best way to write your essays. I think that people try to write about what they think admissions officers want to read about. I think that people should instead focus on what they want the admissions officers to know about them as individuals and try to demonstrate the qualities they like the most about themselves in their essays.
This can be taken too far though. Some people write about “giving” acts that are really just shallow and superficial. One such example was a girl who donated cookies every year with her family to people in need. This comes off as really pretentious, arrogant, condescending, shallow, etc. because it’s basically as disingenuous as you can get. Not only are cookies not really particularly necessary, but it’s showing how out-of-touch she is with what people actually need vs. what they want. If she wanted to talk about how she loved spending the time with her family every year and instead chose to focus on that aspect of it, it would be a fine essay topic. Instead, she revealed an aspect of herself that seemed “charitable” but was really just artificial and kind of forced.
Again, not to discourage anyone from writing about certain topics or to tell people that I know what’s best when it comes to writing essays, I just think that a lot of people go about writing essays in the wrong way. In my opinion every essay topic should be centered on your development as a person or how that topic relates to some of your traits. Obviously if you’re writing about something that’s not related to you (I had one essay for Tufts about my favorite character) it can be hard to try and relate it to you in this way, but even then you can reveal certain qualities about yourself in how you write the essay and what direction you take with it.
@micmatt513
I personally have the exact opposite opinion. Most people don’t take into consideration what the admissions officers want to read. In other words people don’t realize the personal statement is part of their application to a school. Instead, they write about what they want to write about. As a result the material or content is just not relevant to the admissions process.
@bomerr - I think that trying to hard to impress the admissions officers comes off as crass or a bit immature honestly. Maybe we’re talking about the same thing (as I think some people just dive into essays without considering how they’re portraying themselves to someone else), but I think that it’s better to write about yourself and show off the qualities that you’d be most proud of. Note: I’m not talking about achievements, accomplishments, etc. I’m talking about the qualities as a person that you’re most proud of. There is a time and a place for bragging about yourself (you shouldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill and vice versa), but colleges can see your achievements and accomplishments in your Common App. I think each piece of your application should show something different and should be independent from the other parts.
Obviously there are various approaches that can be successful. This is just what I’ve had success with and I think that being genuine is the easiest way to approach the process.
@micmatt513
I think we might be talking about the something.
You are talking about the people that just try bragging hard in their essays about their accomplishments or skills. I would say that those people don’t take into consideration what admissions officers want to read because they don’t realize the vibe/tone of their essays. In other words that there essays make them come off as not likable.
@micmatt513 If you ask anyone in college admissions what the biggest mistake is when writing supplements, it would probably be vague language. If a school is asking why you want to be there or what you can contribute to the campus community and you write something that can be applied to 40 other schools, you did not correctly write your supplement. The OP essentially wrote a personal statement as an answer to a supplement.
@CaliCash unfortunately I think you’re mostly correct. I reasoned that the somewhat impersonal “I like math. I like the math department at this school, so I want to go here” essay is pretty generic and essentially how every “Why this college?” essay is written, but now I’m pretty sure I was wrong. Luckily Oberlin isn’t my #1 choice, so if I get waitlisted or rejected because I didn’t write about how much I love their “green” philosophy and environmental science major explicitly rather than implicitly, it won’t be the end of the world.
My Reed essay was a bit clearer, though. So I think I should be fine essay-wise there.