What's your hardest application?

Applying to College
81

<p>I'm not one to complain about applications (I surprisingly found them to be easy and the essays sometimes enjoyable) but two of them...</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins: A $10 adventure? Sounds fun, right? WRONG. Half-way through the essay I had so much description I thought I was writing a romance novel or something...planning an adventure is easy, but writing about it and describing it to the point that you just don't care = torture! Not to mention that I had to label something in my essay (a monopoly game) on sale. Stupid inflation!</p>

<p>UPenn: Holy moses, how many essays do you want from me? What do I like to do for fun? Filling out applications, I don't know, not really thinking about fun. Not to mention the 300 character limit.
Which professor would you like to work with? I don't KNOW any professor yet because I don't go to your school, so I have to research a good professor.
Why do you want to go to Penn? Because it's Penn, that's why! I sure had "fun" searching aimlessly through your website for something to say though.
pg. 217: Probably my strongest essay but it took forever...</p>

<p>So to answer your question, JHU wins for hardest essay topic and UPenn wins for most essays per app...I feel better now. :)</p>

82

<p>Northwestern and Johns Hopkins were pretty tricky. way too much writing.</p>

83

<p>Hated Northwestern and ended up not applying (lol), and Chicago's essay questioin was insane, didn't even bother doing it
JHU and PENN were kinda tricky while WUSTL and Dartmouth were relatively eassssy</p>

84

<p>MIT was the only one which gave me much trouble, I just couldn't get the essay to come out.</p>

85

<p>Okay, so last year I applied to eight schools: Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, U Notre Dame, U Chicago, Emory, NYU, and University of Georgia, and of all of my applications UGA was the hardest. I guess it was a mix of lack of motivation (it was my reluctant safety) and a huge load of 5 short answer essays. U Chicago had several essays and so did Columbia, but I didn't mind working on Columbia essays, and U Chicago had fun essay topics. UGA's essays were so cheesy that they were hard to write: write about a time you grew as a person, write about a time you displayed integrity, something about the UGA community--anyways, it was a pain in the butt.</p>

86

<p>Out of my list of schools, hardest to easiest:</p>

<ol>
<li>UMich. If there is any uglier, more convoluted application out there, I'd like to see it. Essays weren't nice either.</li>
<li>Cornell, for the short answers devoured me alive. This seems to be the general sentiment of Cornell's short answers. More vague, generalized short answers are nary to be found. But the application form was clear cut and easy to read. That's something (see above). </li>
<li>Princeton. Would've been worse without the common application, because those 5 essay prompts are hard to choose from...at least they weren't vague and full of poo like Cornell's. Oh, they also had BSE statement o' interest and the Past Two Summers thing. Their adcom will be tired of reading my writing by February...</li>
<li>Caltech. Ah...the box -- "Why Caltech" was fun, and actually, the whole app was pretty fun. But I'm deathly worried of TH3 B0><. </li>
<li>MIT. EA deferred -- It was my first application, first set of essays. Now I don't know what to do. :\ Well, the adcom must already be tired of my writing, as I did both optional essays, so the deferred supplement/update will be interesting.</li>
<li>Harvard - really not that bad, actually.<br></li>
<li>UMass-Amherst. Hah. Miniscule font. Short application.</li>
<li>Case Western Reserve. The supplement is nothing if you're not going for the preprofessional scholar thing.</li>
</ol>

<p>


</p>

<p>Ahh, I wouldn't say they were terrible. Then, I didn't really follow the essay prompt, didn't realize it either. Oh hey, did you put RSI waitlisted on your apps :D j/k, but it is impressive :)</p>

<p>Out of the other schools, I've heard Brown, UPenn, to be pretty bad. UPenn has the nice autobiography essay (sounds fun) but also an essay on 'If you spent a day as a UPenn student' or something along those lines...I guess if you really, really loved UPenn, that would be a wonderful essay to write. I wouldn't half mind writing one for MIT, actually.</p>

<p>And I saw the Tufts online application. It was all "LOLZ YOU HAVE THREE HOURS, NO SAVING!!!!! LOL" >_<</p>

<p>But overall, I would have to say there is no application more brutal and more thorough than that of Deep Springs. Well, perhaps the military academies (as swimboy elaborated), but Deep Springs is an application full of essays. I think 7 - less if you don't make it through the first round.</p>

87

<p>Was I the only person who could reuse my Common App essay for Penn? I worte about a significant experience for the Common App and then reworked it slightly to make it about a "first expereince". Just having to rework all the boxes was annyoing.</p>

88

<p>^^ I used my ga tech, uiuc essay for penn's first experience. also reworked sig into first. :P</p>

89

<p>I worked why Cornell into why Upenn too.</p>

90

<p>Columbia and Boston College were my easiest, and Princeton and Northwestern were my hardest. Yay for single essay applications!</p>

91

<p>Chicago!!!</p>