<p>is anyone applying to Harvard as well as Yale? Do you think I can send the same essay for Yale (the one where we say something that we haven't written about in the common app) for Harvard's optional supplemental essay?</p>
<p>yeah, i’m sure you can</p>
<p>Yes, you can; in fact, many do.</p>
<p>I’m going to.
While harvard gives you possible topics, you can write whatever you want.</p>
<p>Thank you :)</p>
<p>It’s very common</p>
<p>Rejection is also very common. What might make Harvard think that an applicant is recycling a Yale essay?</p>
<p>Have you looked at both prompts? They’re virtually identical</p>
<p>^^ Harvard adcoms must be omniscient otherworldly beings if they can deduce from my essay that it was written for Yale’s “write anything about yourself” and then copied onto Harvard’s “write anything about yourself”.</p>
<p>Yale and Harvard attract and house two different student bodies. Harvard seems more serious and business oriented whereas Yale is more artsy. The only problem with recycling the essay is that it may only appeal to one admissions committee’s tastes. If you read it and think it is what both schools would like, then you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>^I don’t fully agree with that. </p>
<p>If you feel your Yale essay accurately portrayed you as you, I don’t see why Harvard would want anything else.</p>
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<p>This differentiation is probably true to such a small degree that it’s not generally meaningful. I agree with ccuser18: there’s no need to write a different essay for Harvard than for Yale in order to make each essay “appeal to one admissions committee’s tastes.”</p>
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<p>…aren’t they? LOL.</p>
<p>^And another piece of the puzzle falls into place</p>
<p>I used the same supplement essay at H, Y, and P, I only got into one…
That could be because of the differences between the schools that someone else already pointed out, or it could be for an almost infinite number of other reasons.
Me? I just felt like that essay reflected who I was to the best of my ability and there was no reason to write another one.
Unless your Y supplement is obviously Y tailored (you mention an obsessive love of bulldogs… 
) you can use it for any other college.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>don’t angst over it guys. the smarter, funnier, more personable folks will get into yale, have a better time, get better jobs, live a better life. the harvard grads will go to marry several times, steal money, become vice president and go to jail. really, relax. 5 years after graduation ,no one cares except you.</p>
<p>lisa
yale bfa, mfa jd</p>
<p>I did the same one.</p>
<p>I recycled essays, and I can say with 100% confidence that this fact alone had no bearing on my admissions decisions. Go for it.</p>
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<p>This is not because Yale’s admissions officers accept more artsy people than Harvard’s do. The most common extracurricular for BOTH Harvard and Yale’s incoming classes is music. Yale is more artsy because it has an artsy reputation and thus more artsy people choose to go there, not because more of them are accepted. Harvard is more serious because it has a more serious environment and thus serious people like it better. It has nothing to do with who is accepted where, because both serious and artsy people are accepted to both schools.</p>
<p>I think it’s true that schools have certain preferences, but the differences are so negligible; it’s not like each school is accepting a different group of 1500 people and if anything, Harvard and Yale are the most similar out of HYPSM. I mean, I got into Yale, an artsy school, and another school that is definitely not artsy writing my essays primarily about music. The adcoms don’t care.</p>