i’m dreading the why this college essays
i’m done with my ec essay and 1/2 done with my personal essay for the common app. but i’m applying to a lot of colleges which means a lot of why ___ essays. it must be really hard to have a stand-outish essay for one of these-- do colleges look for that or do they not mind when you say what everyone else says-- this major, beautiful campus, friendly students, i just felt like i fit in…etc.
<p>it is hard not to write generic essays.</p>
<p>what's more half way through my Penn essay, I realized i didn't want to go there at all :p</p>
<p>I think for many top colleges this is one of the most important parts of the application. It is important to show the college -- even somewhat generically -- that you care about their college personally & aren't applying for the name, prestige, etc. </p>
<p>It is just a hunch but I think this is possibly the main reason why an applicant w/ nearly perfect stats manages to be rejected.</p>
<p>i loved the why _____? essays. i had a revelation about formatting when writing my third one and it worked wonderfully.</p>
<p>Can one write about anything for Harvard's additional essay? (Like "Why did I chose Harvard"; "Ethical Dilemma" etc)</p>
<p>I enjoyed writing the "why _____" essays. I had three: Why Swarthmore, Why Oberlin, Why Reed. It was almost tempting to write basically the same things and save myself work, but when I started writing, I had such different things I loved about each school. Reed's was the easiest for me to write, because it brought out a more quirky side to my character, everything just flowed. Then I started the swarthmore one, and they stood out so much in my mind because of the Quaker values that I share without having any religious background. Plus the trees...I like trees. Oberlin I wrote partly about food, partly about the first time I heard about the college (I'd been set up on a blind date to meet a guy after watching him perform in the Rocky Horror Picture Show...it was interesting...). I think those essays are a very good idea; you should know why you are applying to the college. For me, writing it solidified my interest in the schools and gave me more motivation to work harder on the rest of my applications.</p>
<p>Actually, the "why" essay should be the easiest... It's a good check to see if you really want to go to that school. If you're having a hard time, don't quit just yet. Continue to search through the school and check out the clubs, its history, look at more campus photos, if you have the opportunity then go visit the school- at the end, if you still have a hard time, then you should seriously reconsider applying. I'll add that you should not just confine yourself to description about the school. When you go to college, you're not just experiencing life on campus, but the surroundings as well. When I talked about Swarthmore, I also talked about Tri-College Consortia and also local museums in and around the Philadelphia area. Alternatively, you can talk about something specific about the school. For NYU on their short question supplement to the Common Application, I actually talked about an organization of world, urban colleges that NYU is a part of (and I only talked about that!). So yeah, there is a lot that you can actually talk about. Your best bet is to never actually talk about academics, but some other aspect of the school that appeals to you. Never ever use the term "good school" or "presitigious," but the best bar you should look to is, "what can I say that really represents me, my interest in the school, and what I can contribute to _______'s community?."Best of luck,</p>
<p>TTG</p>
<p>I had to write one of these essays for Columbia, when I sat down to write it I realized what parts of Columbia really appealed to me. The biggest thing for me was finding an urban school that doesn't look like it's right in the middle of the city. I wrote about wanting to live apart from the city yet also living within it. I wanted to be at a school with access to everything that also had trees and grass which I discovered I couldn't live without. I also wrote about the challenge of attending Columbia, a school with one of the finest student bodies in the world would allow me to challenge myself and resolve my issue of always having to be at the top. Being a part of the community of students at Columbia would allow me to work hard, but it would also allow me to relax a little as I realized that the student body would be different from any other I had ever been part of. I realized I would no longer be a big fish and that the competition to be the best would be so much more difficult that I would be able to accept not being the stand-out that I have always been. The reasons I wanted to go to Columbia really were more than the prestige of going to an Ivy league school, and as I wrote the essay I realized that. </p>
<p>It is so much better to write this particular essay for each school individually, consider it your first challenge from a school that will probably challenge you for the next four years should you choose to attend. If you really have solid reasons for choosing to apply to a school the essay should start to stand out because it speaks about you as a person instead of the school. The admissions people already know enough about the school; it isn't the school they want to get to know, they want to get to know you.</p>