<p>Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Yay, they finally stickied this thread!</p>
<p>Did any of you do the “optional” essay? I submitted a 600-700 word one about my community, but I was debating the “letter to a roommate” as well.</p>
<p>Yeah, I did the essay. Go for which ever one you think could showcase a side of your personality and who you are in a way your application and Common App essay cannot.</p>
<p>Everyone likes “letter to the roommate” hahaha</p>
<p>I wrote about a topic of my own: “Why I love engineering” (650 words) and I think it was one of my best essays.</p>
<p>I wrote a letter to my roommate. I know it showed more of who I was than any of my other essays. My teacher who was reading it for grammatical errors actually missed about half of the errors because she was enjoying it so much 
Luckily, I did find the errors before submission.</p>
<p>Were you guys able to create paragraphs in the the additional essay? Although I could in the common app essay, no matter what I tried, the paragraph breaks wouldn’t stay in the additional essay for me.</p>
<p>Hey guys, I’m new here and pretty inexperienced when it comes to college admissions. What does it mean if I’ve got a Likely Letter?</p>
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<p>I had this problem with firefox. I changed my browser and it was ok</p>
<p>straya88: Congrats on the likely letter! That means you’re basically in (not 100%, but you can be fairly certain). Are you getting recruited?</p>
<p>@ straya: here’s info about Likely Letters</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/804816-quick-facts-about-likely-letters.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/804816-quick-facts-about-likely-letters.html</a></p>
<p>How bad do you think it is if I decided just to bold the beginnings of my additional essay paragraphs?</p>
<p>I had the paragraph problem so I added an extra line break between every new paragraph and it worked for me. Like instead of pressing enter once I pressed it twice</p>
<p>I did a essay topic of my own and sent it via mail… And straya, you got a likely letter from Harvard? Are you an athlete? I heard Harvard doesn’t send a likely letter for SCEA unless you are an athlete…</p>
<p>i didn’t do the optional essay… hope it isn’t a big factor. Also, as an international, i didn’t answer the last question which asked about my future plans, since the question was framed as “what specific plans do you have, if any, …” Given that I have no specific plans at the moment, i didn’t put anything.</p>
<p>@Thebeatlestoday Thanks! Yeah I’m being recruited.</p>
<p>@T26E4 Thank you, thats very informative</p>
<p>My interview went fantastically! Can’t wait for decisions.</p>
<p>I didn’t do the optional essay. I instead have a additional info essay that i just left there that would have served the same purpose.</p>
<p>Fine, I know what am about to ask is a bit ridiculous, but I always wondered about it. Does receiving a brochure (hard copy, specifically cuz am an international student and I found a copy of Harvard’s Brochure in my doorstep a few months earlier, even before completing my Universal College App) from an Ivy mean anything? I mean like, some say its random, others say it is not. Why would they risk mailing it? when they can e-mail? does every applicant get it? Moreover, where on earth did they get my address from?, I didnt even complete my application the time I received it!</p>
<p>@ecstatia, I’m wondering that too. I was bombarded by brochures a whole ago (it’s slowed down now) and I definitely haven’t signed up for any college’s mailing lists. And I didn’t send my scores or etc to most of those colleges so how the hell are they getting my info? </p>
<p>And I got a hard copy letter from Penn with a prospectus and invitation to apply as well. It’s all very odd to me. I imagine sending all these out must be very expensive.</p>