<p>A lot of the schools I'm applying to in the fall have their applications for this year (09) online, do the essays usually stay the same each year? Would it be worth it for me to start working on them or should I wait until mid/late summer when the official application for my year comes out</p>
<p>I started my Cornell supplement 70 minutes before the deadline, but to each his own, I suppose. I know some people that have literally spent months on one supplement.</p>
<p>I put off/almost didn’t apply to Penn until the very last minute because the supplement was a lot longer/harder than the ones for other schools. It was the only school I got into, which I think is partly because when I rushed, the essays that came out were a lot more genuine (they had to be, in a way) than the essays that had good intentions but were more “crafted” (perhaps artificially) with more time.</p>
<p>A lot of this depends on the person. Do you plan on having a lot of EC’s and tough AP classes in the fall? Are you having to fit into someone else’s schedule who will help you edit the writings? Might you take ill with a cold or the flu during the height of application season?</p>
<p>I submitted the Yale supplement five minutes before it was due and wrote the essay that night… I would not suggest waiting this long… but ENJOY your summer w/o college worries (except maybe some research - but this isn’t and should not be strenuous)… when fall roles around, I would begin applying</p>
<p>illuminar, i had the same experience with both penn and stanford. i stressed for months about the princeton supplement and ended up being rejected there. i did the penn and stanford ones the day they were due, writing the essays in record time, and actually later found typos in them… i got into penn with a likely and am attending stanford in the fall. craziness. i think writing them ‘spur of the moment’ really made them genuine :)</p>