<p>Hi! When an application has no essays, including no “Why this college?” question, what is the best way to show interest?</p>
<p>I am strictly talking about how to show interest within your application. Could you fill in the “Additional info” section with comments about why this college is right for you? Or should you write a letter that answers why the college is right for you, and hope they would add that to your file?</p>
<p>This is to help my son, who will be filling out a lot of apps during the next few days. He has already done the visiting, contacting, etc. There are a few applications in which he would like to describe why he is a good fit.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Many colleges do have an optional essay, which would be one way to show interest. For my son, who was not a tippy top student, I suggested applying early to indicate interest, but that doesn’t work at this time of year.</p>
<p>Note that you can check the school’s common data set, section C7, to find out if “level of interest” is an admissions criterion.</p>
<p>^ that’s what I’ll do for my son if he is still filling out app at this time. Since it is close to the deadline, don’t waste time on writing why essays to colleges that don’t care. Instead of spendinf time of making a neat app with fine essays is more important, IMO.</p>
<p>If he’s already done the “visiting, contacting etc.”, and you’re sure the admissions office has a record of it, he’s probably covered most of the showing interest that’s needed. If he has a particularly strong academic interest, he has hopefully contacted faculty in that area, and could certainly contact Professor X and let him/her know that he’s submitted an application and continues to be very interested in attending Whatever U…and could copy his admissions rep on that letter.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice. My son has pretty much done everything listed above -except for completing the applications early :-)</p>
<p>He can get in touch with professors in cases where he has not done that yet. </p>
<p>I’m still thinking of having him write an extra letter about why these few schools are a good fit. I think it is releveant information and how he honestly feels. Weird that I wish these schools had more essay questions, isn’t it?</p>
<p>If they don’t require a college specific essay, they probably don’t even care.</p>
<p>These are mostly liberal arts colleges… I would think that they care about fit, even though they don’t ask. It is not like an application to a big state school (he already did that one.)</p>