Same with my kid. He just laid his head down on his desk at the thought of more essays. He has a few other scholarship opportunities in addition to Alumni he has to submit essays for and he is tired. I keep encouraging him and telling him he is nearly to the finish line. One more big push to go.
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No it won’t. The two processes (admission decision and alumni scholarship) run independently
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We are also finding it hard to justify another essay at this point since we applied to 20 schools and have no energy left. We would rather know we are admitted before spending the time and energy.
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We are in the same boat to be honest. Admissions for Comp Sci and overall have become such a lottery that we had no choice but to apply to many schools. We were told our targets are reaches this year and our reaches are far reaches. Add a highly competitive major into the mix and you have no choice but to apply all over. We are simply fatigued and a pre admission application for a scholarship isn’t very motivating at the moment.
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Was it always 2 essays for this alumni scholarship? I somehow remember my older kid only doing one?
Fatigue has also factored into writing more essays - plus he’s busy with swim season. I just asked him to forward me the email and wow- 2 500-word essays is a lot. It seems my older kid had the first prompt- her essay was quote-related, but I don’t remember the 2nd unless she recycled something.
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Indeed. For a few thousand dollars? I’m sorry but the only thing that can get us motivated for that type of effort is a half or full tuition scholarship for all 4 years. We can make up a few thousand dollars through internships in no time.
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Indeed- it was hard enough to get him to write the GTech essay/LOCI after he was deferred last week.
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I completely understand. I went through that with my son this morning. He was almost tempted to skip the GT LOCI. IMO, college admissions is at a breaking point. It is simply a matter of time before all of this will need to change. They could do just as well by having kids meet grade and score thresholds and putting them in lotteries for admissions and scholarships.
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Back in 2018 I believe it was only one. Something about “write page 164 of your autobiography” (which was really not something that could be re-used from elsewhere).
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This is disappointing news. D wants a big school but looks for ways to make it small. Was hopeful this peer group and service events would be helpful and that there would be mentoring.
Oh I better have my kid check the portal. He was also deferred but hasn’t mentioned needing to write another essay.
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Yes it is thankfully very short and can be informal. We wrote a few words on new awards, activities, and included mid year grades. Best of luck!
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Roughly could be less or more. Its so rare that I wouldn’t worry about it unless one gets the email.
100% of invitees for regents will be admitted.
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I am a reader. While we don’t have access to the essays from the app, it is easy to tell if someone recycled or massaged a UC PIQ for one of the scholarship essays. Scores are subject to the different reviewers and get normalized, I tended to be more generous with scoring and certainly did not penalize applicants that obviously reused an essay. I evaluated it as if it were written solely for the scholarship app.
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This may be a good resource for tips on what to include : How to Write a Great Letter of Continued Interest
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Thank you!
You are very welcome! Good luck to your son.
True that. The conclusion of Jeffrey Selingo’s book (Who Gets In and Why) talks about what is broken in selective schools and some potential solutions. Time will tell if any of it will ever come to be 
Until then good luck to all of us 
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Decision will be in March or rolling?