School With the Hardest Supplements?

Applying to College
1

I would have to pick Hampshire. They ask for FOUR prompts along with the Common App essay, and each of those prompts is meant to be relatively long. Then again, they do have a 71 percent acceptance rate and I suppose this just discourages people who are not truly interest from applying. But it still seems a bit excessive. Here are the prompts;

Analytical Essay/Academic Paper. We are interested in your ability to ask complex questions, think critically, synthesize information and formulate your own conclusions through original analysis. Submit an academic paper of any length, written in English, that you produced for a class in the past year. We do not accept in-class essays, creative writing samples, journal entries, or lab reports, but feel free to submit creative options to supplement your application. If you do not have an example that best represents your ability to write analytically, feel free to create and submit an essay on a complex question of your own design.

Students receive narrative evaluations at Hampshire instead of letter or number grades. At the end of each course, students also complete a self-evaluation reflecting on their goals and class performance. Write a self-evaluation of a favorite class or other learning activity in high school. What were your goals? Where did you succeed? What do you wish had gone differently?

Hampshire students are known for their ingenuity, creativity, curiosity, passion, activism, concern for others, and entrepreneurship. Which of these attributes best describes you? Tell us how you embody this quality, or choose a different quality that says more about you.

Choose one of the four essays below. Respond to either A, B, C or D (1 - 500 words).

A. Each student at Hampshire completes a major project in their final year where they design, implement, and complete an advanced independent study dealing with a sophisticated and complete set of questions, concepts, skills and abilities. Discuss an example of a question, skill, or ability that you’ve explored or would like to explore outside the classroom.

B. You are writing your autobiography. Imagine what you would say on page 54 about yourself and your experiences.

C. Imagine a scientist and artist coming together for a conversation about color. How do you think this exchange would go? What would they talk about? What kinds of discoveries might they make?

D. Share a one-minute video that tells us something about you. Upload it to YouTube or another accessible website and send us the link.

2

I’m curious, what’s the length of the second and third prompts?

3

University of chicago has 3 supplements, but their kinda fun honestly.

Univ. of Notre Dame has 3 as well but 250 words each only, and kinda fun.

Harvard and Stanford have quite the amount as well.

4

^Lol, Harvard has like one and it’s optional. They do have a 150 word extracurricular essay too, but that’s nothing

5

Wake forest had like 5-8 when I applied last year. They werent incredibly long, but time consuming which dettered me from applying in the end

6

I think Bard added a very long essay/prompt this year? Not sure, read about it on another thread…

7

Actually, Bard has 4 essays of 2500 words each, which is quite excessive. Or that’s what I heard at least

8

I don’t think it’s the length of a supplement that makes it hard. Sometimes the shorter ones can be brutal, just because of the depth of thinking you’re expected to cram into those 250 words. It’s like writing a sonnet, versus a longer free-verse poem.

9

I like the Hampshire essay about color!

My D found it easier to write the Chicago long essay than the 5 MIT short ones, which included writing about an aspect of your personality you are proud of and describing the world you come from.

10

“Wake forest had like 5-8 when I applied last year. They weren’t incredibly long, but time consuming which dettered me from applying in the end”

Same with my son, he thought it was just not worth it and crossed Wake Forest off his list.

11

I believe University of South Carolina Honors College wanted 6 essays. When they told me that at the information session, all I could think was “Even Stanford only wants 3!”

12

Having more supplements doesn’t necessarily mean the application is harder.

Stanford has a really long supplement but it gives lots of room to come off well-rounded. Likewise for Columbia and Yale.

IMO the worst is any school that only has 1 essay asking what our reasons about our enrollment.*
*Which is really awful as a transfer student as most Ivys are like that: Harvard, Penn, Dartmouth Cornell, Brown (2/3 essays)

@Esat936
What I would do is write all the essays for the other schools you are applying to first and then copy and paste (with some retweeting) to answer those Hampshire essays. Bam problem solved.

13

Yale’s felt like a lot. One major essay and if you’re an engineering applicant two. Plus the 100 word why Yale and a bunch of 40 word questions.

14

Princeton also has an extra essay if you’re interested in engineering. Why do those two schools do that?

15

@green678
probably because a lot of people who are qualified applicants for these top tier schools have high marks in math and science and thus a large percentage will apply for engineering.

16

Cooper Union has the infamous Hometest which generally consists of 6-10 art prompts and about as many writing prompts.

17

@Hawkace, the Bard essays you refer to are are alternative way of applying called the Bard Entrance Exam which bases admission on these 4 essays rather than transcript etc. For the standard admission process there were no supplements this year.

18

@slights32‌
Yale wasn’t that bad. The one big essay was pretty much free-form so you can recycle another essay (I used Vandy’s). The others are short enough that they aren’t a huge hassle (though they are a bit unusual)

19

Lol I think I’ve been desensitized to hard supplement as I applied to 16 schools through the common app and each had their own supplement.