<p>I know Vandy got rid of this essay a couple of years ago because they felt it was useless. Why do some colleges keep it around? How does it help them determine if someone is a suitable candidate by looking at the reasons that person wants to go there (especially when the reasons are probably the same as everyone else's)? Is the only purpose of these essays to gauge a candidate's interest level/whether that person will choose the college if accepted?</p>
<p>I think you’ve gauged it correctly–it’s an indicator of the level of your interest. If you write something generic, you’re not showing much love. </p>
<p>Tufts, and possibly other schools, make this essay more challenging by severely limiting its length. Explaining what you like in a school in 50-100 words is tough! It’s a good model for this kind of essay, because brevity forces you to choose one or two specific things you like about a school rather than try to encompass everything in a few hundred words. When you pick one thing you really like about a school as an example of what you like about that school, it shows the admissions folks that yes, you’ve done your homework.</p>
<p>Done well, I believe they can make you stand out among many generic essays. Top colleges do this because they want to see that your interest in their school goes beyond the USNWR ranking and that you’ve done your homework on their school.</p>
<p>It’s also a way for colleges to compare your writing to the writing of all the other applicants, according to a UChicago rep I heard a few years back. If I write my CommonApp essay on my love for medicine, and my friend writes about helping her grandma cook, those are going to have very different tones and emphases. The rep said that it was nice to see how well everybody could write when they had to respond to the same, very specific, prompt.</p>
<p>I think they also want to know that you have done your research and know about the school. They want to know that you have a pretty good idea of what you will be getting into if you go there.</p>