For the Virginia Tech college essays, the fifth choice is choose your own prompt. Would it be a bad idea to write about why Virginia Tech is my number one choice, or why Virginia Tech engineering is the right place for me?
I suggest responding to the first choice, “What are the top five reasons you want to be a Hokie?” and then respond to your own prompt 'Why Virginia Tech engineering is the right place for me?" Be sure to not repeat anything you placed in the first essay prompt.
“What are the top five reasons you want to be a Hokie?” and “Why tech engineering is the right place for me?” seem very similar. you can answer the “why tech engineering” within hokie reasons essay. good luck! i wish u a merry christmas
Did the essay prompts change at some point? My son had these choices…
You may respond to up to three of the essay prompts below (choose one, two, or three) as you feel they support your individual application. In general, concise, straightforward writing is often the best for college essays. Please limit your responses to no more than 300 words in length.
1- Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
2 - Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution.
3 - Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs?
4 - What’s the hardest part of being a teenager now? What’s the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?
5 - Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.
@STEM2017 I believe they added 5-6 more prompts
Pretty sure my son answered 1, 2, and 5 from the list above. Nothing about Hokies or VT specifically. I hope that doesn’t put him at a disadvantage.
@STEM2017 Somewhere between late September, they added more prompts and changes the word count limit from <300 to 250-300. I think it’s really unfair to those that wrote their essays before they added more prompts, but then submitted them afterwards. I can only hope they take this into consideration.
@Notloq Agree 100%. My son wrote nothing specifically about why he wanted VT. Because they didn’t ask. So he’s worried.
I think you all are adding unnecessary anxiety. There are 11 prompts, and since they limit you to 3 there is no way they expect a response from every section.
The limit is three. Did everyone submit three and is it looked on less if you only submit 1?
I would recommend answering three. You will never know why you did or didn’t get in but if it comes down to chosing between applicants would you rather be the one who looks like they cared enough to provide as much information as they could or the one who did the minimum?
@STEM2017 The prompts you copied and pasted are from the Common App, not prompts given by Virginia Tech.
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@infinigirly I think I posted the Coalition App (not Common App) prompts by mistake. Good catch - sorry for any confusion.
The prompts can be found here https://admissions.vt.edu/content/dam/admissions_vt_edu/forms/2017-18PersonalStatementEssayPrompts.pdf
BTW, my son just sumbittted the online application and you would think that such a well respected “tech” school would have a better application. He said it was pretty cumbersome, tiny text boxes for the essay responses and no way to preview your application before sumbitting. Surprising.
@NJEngDad My S is filling out VT application right now. For a tech school, I am quite surprised by how outdated and poorly designed the online portal is. Tiny text boxes and yes, no way to preview. What is also confusing is that both page 4 and 5 ask for uploading resumes. Hmm.
its a vendor. when you click to apply it takes you away from vt.edu, they’re IT folks have nothing to do with it.
@MomtoAndrew2018 My recollection was only one resume was required for activities and leadership. After my son applied, he confirmed directly with admissions that they received his uploaded resume.
So for activities, leadership, athletics, volunteering, you should list it in resume format?
@pkgny2022 That’s how my son chose to do it. He listed things out is a resume format.