<p>A friend of mine recommended to me that I write two separate essays for two universities to which I'm going to apply through the common application (so I can focus on each school individually), but the common app itself says to use the same essay for all schools. </p>
<p>Is it possible to submit multiple common apps, and would you guys advise against it?</p>
<p>Does anyone have any information on this?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Login on this link: <a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Default.aspx?allowcopy=true[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Default.aspx?allowcopy=true</a></p>
<p>Then you can make as many copies as you want and change things, moving and adding schools on different lists.</p>
<p>I made a second version when I added three schools a few months later, but that was just because some things needed updating.</p>
<p>You can make different versions of the app, and there’s nothing wrong with this, but it defeats most of the purpose of the common app. In all honesty, it probably won’t be much of an advantage, so you might as well just do one common app essay and send one version of the common app.</p>
<p>You’ll be better off spending lots of time writing one amazing essay than spending the time writing two good essays.</p>
<p>Plus, the schools on the common app know that the essay is a generic essay for all the schools to which you’re applying, so they’re not expecting anything tailored specifically to their school and will be perfectly happy with a high-quality essay written to no school in particular.</p>
<p>If the schools want essays specific to their school, they’ll ask you to write them for their supplements.</p>
<p>
Hardly. All your past work is still saved, you’re still working on the same format, and you can use all your downloaded recommendations.</p>
<p>
Still, different schools are looking for different students. I never personally changed essays between versions (except for minor changes to the same one), but I can see the point if you’re applying to very different types of schools.</p>
<p>From the wording of the OP it sounded more like OP intends to direct the essay at the particular schools, which might look a little odd when the schools see that on the common app essay.</p>
<p>Which are the schools? If they are indeed looking for very different types of students, it might be worth it (while not mentioning specific schools, writing about things they’d be more likely to want to hear), but if they’re looking for relatively similar types of students, it’s probably not worth the trouble.</p>
<p>I’m applying to NYU and UPenn through the common app. My concern is that the NYU supplement gives little space to describe why I want to go to NYU. The questions don’t really pertain to this, and they’re limited to 500 characters with spaces. If I tailor my essay to NYU, I can explain why I want to go to NYU, linking my interests to their faculty and so on. I couldn’t express this through the supplement.</p>
<p>UPenn, by contrast, requires an individual essay on the supplement. So, presumably, I’d write a really generic essay for the common app, and a specific one for the supplement. But I can’t do this for NYU.</p>
<p>However, here is my concern. Tailoring my essay to NYU could look good or bad. On the one hand, it could look as if I really want to get into NYU and I’m applying only to them. On the other hand, the adcoms could be like, “***? Why did he tailor his essay to us?” </p>
<p>So that’s why I made this thread.</p>