Using the same essay for different supplements

Applying to College
1

<p>If the prompts are the same, or very near the same, or the prompt is to "make your own prompt", is it okay to use an essay you wrote for a supplement on a different supplement as well? How about doing this multiple times (in my case, for 4 colleges).</p>

2

<p>Of course :).</p>

3

<p>Niiiice 10char</p>

4

<p>This is a perfectly acceptable strategy. My six Ivy applications are made up of 2 essays!</p>

5

<p>No way in hell. Each essay has to be different. Maybe you can re-use a paragraph here and there but it can’t be a shell of “I like <insert college=”" here=“”> because of <insert program=“”>.</insert></insert></p>

6

<p>arot0629 i don’t care.</p>

7

<p>NewAccount, props to you. same here.</p>

8

<p>

I wouldn’t be so sure about that one, buddy. I took my Columbia essay, replaced “Columbia” with “University of Chicago” and sent it to UChicago. Turned out alright for me, didn’t it?</insert></insert></p>

9

<ol>
<li>That’s called double submission and is considered unethical at many academic institutions. A lot of kids do it for college apps, and I highly, highly doubt anyone’s gotten in trouble for it, but still… meh.</li>
<li>If you want those supplements to help you <em>at all</em> they should be extremely specific to each school, and not able to just be copied and pasted into eight different colleges apps. I don’t think that writing a bland supplement will hurt you, I just don’t see why you wouldn’t take the advantage to look better to colleges.</li>
</ol>

10

<p>My son used the SAME essay for every college he applied to. So did my daughter. The essay topic was to describe one experience that you felt was important in shaping who you were. What were they supposed to do…dream up a bunch of different experiences?</p>

11

<p>You’re supposed to do that. That’s the common part of the application. However supplements are meant to be unique. That’s why they didn’t put it on the common part.</p>

12

<p>@wanton</p>

<p>I would say that colleges use the supplement to ask the specific question/essay prompt they want to ask.
This isn’t necessarily asking every student to try to be unique, but its for each school to have a series of specific responses that they think is important in determining a student’s readiness and/or ‘fit’ for their institution.</p>