<p>I applied to Columbia SEAS this past year and was put on the wait list, then the extended wait list and ultimately was rejected. Had I been accepted, I would have requested a deferral in order to pursue a year of religious studies. Since I will be taking a gap year before I start college, I have one last chance at Columbia. My question: should I write new essays or keep my original essays, the ones that got me on to the extended wait list? I feel that I have a better shot this year anyway because my senior grades were the best grades I got in high school and I will be applying ED while this past year I applied RD. Just putting it out there, I have legacy status; my father attended SEAS. Any advice or thoughts would be great. Thanks!</p>
<p>Seems to me you should write new essays–except for your senior grades, not much else (if anything) will have changed.</p>
<p>So yeah, write new ones.</p>
<p>Write new essays - I’m sure you’ll have had some writeworthy new experiences during your gap year.</p>
<p>Ok, but I assume that unless, somehow, in the next couple of months that my reasons for wanting to go to Columbia and study engineering change, I should keep the “Why Columbia” and “Why Engineering” essays the same?</p>
<p>Also, I just want to point out that these essays got me to the extended wait list, so my thinking is that maybe ED + high senior year grades would put me from “we would love to have you, but our class is full” to “we would love to have you.” Basically, I’m afraid of trying to fix something that isn’t broken.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input!</p>
<p>You really need to write new essays. Your old application will be pulled and put together with your new one. So your old essays–which, you are right–must have been good, but they will already be there. You must look like you care enough to put in the effort to write something new.</p>
<p>i can’t hurt to keep some of the same, but you have to tell them that you’ve applied before on the app, so they will probably look. I figure that if you wrote good essays then you can write them again. Also, they will still look back and see that you were on the extended waitlist, so that is working for you either way.</p>