As a Georgetown student, I find it somewhat entertaining that it appears on this list so much because the admissions office brags every admissions cycle about how the process weeds out uninterested applicants. Selfishly, I’d rather them be bragging about how lower acceptance rates are going to make my degree more valuable, but I suppose that taking the moral high ground comes with the (Jesuit) territory.
didn’t apply to princeton because those essay prompts were not setting me up for success lol. almost dropped penn over a 400 word minimum why penn essay.
My daughter didn’t apply to UChicago for some of those same reasons. On the other hand, I wonder if that helps yield because people who follow through with the application may be more likely to enroll if admitted.
Fatigue definitely played a major role in the (number/type of) schools I ended up applying too. Granted, I stalled a bit and wanted to figure out a way to maximize my time and applications while putting out my best work. When this happens, however, these unattractive supplements (UChicago, Stanford, Brown, for me, for example) become enough reason to convince you that it’s not worth it. I began to evaluate these supplements as a representation of the school, and then with additional research about the school itself and how I would fit it, became deciding factors in my decision to omit them from my list. As others have stated, I was turned off by UChicago’s creative prompts and the length of the Stanford application, and it wasn’t until things got serious that these feelings became relevant. If I had more time or motivation, I would have probably toughened it out.
On the other hand, I was motivated to apply to schools I wasn’t initially interested in simply because they lacked a supplement, their supplement was manageable, or because I was genuinely interested in writing on that topic. I applied to Middlebury last minute because of their lack of supplement – every other school I was applying to was a small liberal arts college anyway, so I saw no harm. Even Harvard became a last minute decision for me because I had essays lined up for their open ended prompt (Pro Tip: Don’t do this. Especially for schools like Harvard).
Similarly, the Georgetown application just became utterly unmanageable for me. It not being on CA was extremely inconvenient, so much so that I was extremely turned off despite the fact that it was probably my #1 all around school.
In the end, sacrifices must be made. We’re all human. To be honest, I don’t really regret anything.
Was going to apply to Occidental, UChicago, and Emory but decided the supplements were all either a) super pretentious (Occidental and UChicago) or b) too hard to answer (Emory). I wasn’t super in love with any of those schools though, so I guess it’s for the better that I didn’t end up wasting an application fee.
I also considered applying to Stanford last minute. I added it to my Common App, looked at the supplement, and removed it from my Common App.
I dropped Notre Dame because of the prompts
I almost dropped Columbia when I saw 7 supplements… luckily when I looked at them only like 3 were real essays and a lot of them were just lists of favorite books and stuff
My son did not apply to Stanford because he thought the essay prompt about future roommate was weird. However, during the four years at his college, he made great contributions to his dorm life and many students in his dorm knew him very well.
Funny, I always wanted to apply to Stanford because I thought the roommate essay seemed like so much fun to write. I did not apply to Stanford, but I applied to UChicago, and had a blast writing my supplement. I almost wanted to write another one for fun, but I didn’t :))
Notre Dame. Ugh.
Also, I decided to drop Princeton, Yale, and Stanford to focus on my many other applications (shorter supplements, and more realistic chances). I just got into UVa this week; I wished that UVa let EA applicants know before XMas. I would’ve not applied to so many matches had I found out about UVA before the Jan 1st deadline. Then, I could’ve applied to Yale or Princeton, and maybe had time to actually celebrate Christmas (worst holiday break ever!)
I also really appreciated the extra 10/11 days to do the Georgetown app. They even gave us an extra day to finish this year. I had plenty of time to perfect that application IMO (even while applying to Penn and Cornell after New Years too).
I cut Caltech because the app was too long and required too much writing
S ruled out all of the UCs. The application wasn’t the only reason, but it was the primary one. We live in California, and he’s well into the range to get into some of the top ones (and he preferred Santa Cruz anyway) - but after looking at the application, he decided that he’d rather go to one of his safeties, even if admitted to both, so off the list went the UCs.
I don’t think he did anything that wasn’t Common App, and even ruled a few other schools out because he didn’t like their supplemental essay topics.
Funny, @2manybooks , it’s trivially easy to adapt the common app and another supp (community is one of the most common supp prompts, after all) to the UC requirements.
Oh, @marvin100 - I know. I looked. Honestly, he’s a SLAC kid, didn’t want to go anywhere big, doesn’t like Berkeley (knows the campus & area pretty well), and likes UCSC, but it’s too far away from walkable foods of the world for him. His safeties met his culinary requirements, and as it turns out, one is offering merit that, should he go there, would bring him in under what a UC would cost, even with Regent’s Scholarships. He knew that would be possible, at least, so when the UC app looked different, he was tired enough of it all to just bail.
He only applied to 6 places - 3 EA, 3 RD. Accepted at the EAs, so it’ll work out. He was just too tired to slog through more apps, I think.
Yeah, that makes sense for sure (I, too, was a SLAC kid from CA haha). Congrats to your son on the EA results & good luck for the regular cycle!
Rochester. How do I keep the environment “ever cooler”??? I really just didin’t understand that and although I really liked the school I just gave up in the end.
@Darude , haha! My kid also disliked that question, but she had a great essay from another app that was easy to modify, so she used that and was happy with the result.
I just completed my 10th college application. I had extreme app fatigue at that point. There were some tears during the last few essays just because I was so tired after dealing with 10 apps and midterms. My parents encouraged me to drop my JMU app but I recycled an essay and the rest was easy but I completely understand why other seniors would want to forgo submitting applications.
This happened to me quite a bit actually haha 
This isn’t the exact same situation, but one of the schools on my list’s common application supplement was being buggy (telling me I had too many words when I had only typed a single letter, and telling me I had to complete the required question when the exact same field was black… .-. ) After contacting both the school and common app support with no response I decided to just drop the school off my list.
I was going to apply to a few Ivy’s along with Stanford just for fun, but seeing the essay prompts stressed me out enough to lose my interest. Plus I only had one teacher rec, and they all required two, and I was too shy to ask for another… oops.
I didn’t apply to Washington and Lee and most honors programs because I didn’t feel like writing more essays. Probably should have though.