Can folks please recommend your one or two favorite sites for sample successful essays from the 2014 Common App? Which prompts are the same from 2014 to 2015?
Any stats out there on which prompts are the most popular by volume (seems that would be a negative if the applicant wants their best chance to stand out) and which have the highest success rate?
To provide some comic relief, are there any “blooper” sites that showcase truly bad essays, either from actual applications or made up for fun?
The changes you see reflect the feedback and consensus of nearly 6000 individuals who responded to our recent survey. Among the survey highlights:
197 individual Member responses representing 110 Member institutions
5667 constituent responses (64% school counselors; 14% students; 11% independent educational consultants; 4% parents; 2% community based organizations; remainder = other)
82% of Members and 90% of constituents agree or strongly agree that the current prompts generate effective essays on the whole
62% of Members and 48% of constituents believe the “story/background” prompt is the most effective
76% of Members and 44% of constituents would like to see the “place where you’re content” prompt replaced
35% of Members and 30% of constituents feel that analytical ability and intellectual curiosity (as a combined percentage) are most the difficult attributes to convey through the current prompts
85% of Members and 82% of constituents feel the prompts should be left open to broad interpretation
3% of Member respondents suggested Topic of Your Choice as a new prompt
6% of constituent respondents suggested Topic of Your Choice as a new prompt, with the breakdown as follows: independent educational consultants (47%), community-based organizations (7%), school counselors (5%), parents (2%), other (2%), students (<1%)