<p>A friend of mine attended the Honors Colloquium this past summer, and she said that one of the speakers recommended that Plan II applicants should include essays C and/or D with their app to provide more samples of their writing ability, in addition to the required A, B and personal statement. Has anyone else heard this?</p>
<p>This in my opinion (I’m a current Plan II student) is not a good idea. If you can not convey your writing style effectively in the standard number of essays you probably won’t be a good applicant for Plan II. Remember, this as reference to length. Only the greatest thinkers can make a difficult concept simple. Anyone can make a topic more difficult than it needs to be. Keep the essays focussed. This is not to say that they can not be beautifully descriptive and informative, just cut out the non-essential BS. Make the point you’d like to make clear and make SURE every word in the essay bolster than main point.</p>
<p>If you accomplish this goal you’ll be well on your way…</p>
<p>Thank you, sm. Your answer makes a lot of sense (and it’s welcome news, besides). </p>
<p>It’s good to hear from a current Plan II student. I also appreciate your description of Plan II in the “LAH vs Plan II” thread.</p>
<p>I understood from the parent presentation at the colloquium that Essay C was encouraged if you had information that would help the school assess your application that could not be provided in other parts of the application. I didn’t hear anything about this being an additional writing sample in the presentation that I attended.</p>
<p>Right. It’s not supposed to be a “let me show you how awesome I am” essay at all. The optional essay is for, for instance super low-income people to say “I’m really underprivileged, but I made it through.” or…“my parents are divorced, and my mom’s a crackhead, so I have to take care of her.” That kind of thing.</p>
<p>So, as I understand it, the UT optional essays are truly optional… I imagine with over 25,000 applications, they don’t want to wade through useless paperwork. </p>
<p>I was wondering the same kind of thing as the OP because I’m applying to Plan II and honors business, and I want to show them as much of me that I can… but I also don’t want to annoy them with stuff to read. I was considering writing Option D about the object changing your way of thinking, even though I don’t have any of the listed majors as my top two choices. Is this unnecessary? </p>
<p>And has anyone started the honors app? How much essay writing is in that? Are there separate applications for separate colleges?</p>
<p>20% of the app is Essay A, 20% is Essay B. I guess anything else you would provide would be in the “how Plan II are you?” But it is absolutely 100% optional. Unless you had a mental breakdown or had a relative who did, there isn’t really any need to respond to any other prompt.</p>
<p>The honors app has a few short answer questions, no big deal whatsoever. There are not separate apps, it’s all the same.</p>