The approach many choose. Join 'em if you can’t beat them. Embrace the rat race. Plenty of essay writers for hire.
Great idea but we visited a bunch of top-20 private schools and they told us how all their students were unique, with amazing extracurriculars, and natural leaders.
That sounds like sales talk or maybe an effort to reduce applications. Not sure if this was a tour guide or admissions but interesting that they misused “unique”!
One of the best essays I read, recently, was about studying at MacDonald’s. That kid’s life may have been average but the writing and level of insight was outstanding.
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Imagine having your kids lament being brought up in a tragedy-free environment.
I agree with this approach.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that a student regurgitate a college’s PR for the “why us” essay, but I do think it’s beneficial for the student to understand the unique culture of a college, what kind of student they are looking for and then attempt to reflect that in this type of essay, as they discuss one or more of the topics above. “Why us” essays are sometimes short answer, so there’s not a lot of space to wax poetic about everything they love.
I sometimes wish they would do away with the longer Common App prompts and go exclusively to shorter college-generated prompts. I love some of the fun ones I’ve seen like, “If I were to visit your hometown, what restaurant would you recommend and why?”
The ones with one-word answers are very intriguing!
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Too bad the SAT essay has gone the way of the dodo. And I think only four colleges still require the ACT essay. But the essay isn’t meant to gauge writing skills. It’s meant to shed light on the person. AO’s are not evaluating the essay for grammar and punctuation, but of course, if the grammar and punctuation are terrible, that will have a negative impact.
When nearly all applicants have great grades and test scores, it’s personality that matters.
Hear hear, except #7, topic of choice. It’s the one I recommend and coincidentally the one no one ever thinks about. I have students who panic after the essay is completed, wondering whcih prompt fits their essay. It’s as if they dont see anything but the complicated ones.
To a point made by another Cc’er, AOs do not expect all their applicants to be great writers. In the context of the most selective schools, the supplements also show personality, but they provide more context about the applicant. IMO, they are harder to write. If a student is paying someone to write them all, they will be paying quite a bit of money to ensure they sound authentic and convey the right information.
But that’s digressing into cheating, which is different conversation.
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Amplifying these points, because they are so true. Sometimes parents and students sweat the wrong things.
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Too few people understand this!!
If a kid has killer grades and scores, the schools know they can write! Schools want to know a bit about the kid: are they an arrogant jerk? Are they kind and thoughtful? Are they a news junkie?
Will they be a good fit for the school, and what do they bring to the school that will add to the community?
ETA I see @Mwfan1921 and I posted simultaneously, saying the same thing, lol.
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Just noting the Yale Admissions Podcast has some very interesting episodes related to various topics in this discussion, which might be worth checking out if you want to see how they see these things from the inside.
One high level point is they are basically constantly evaluating if they are getting what they want out of their supplementals, and if they feel like one did not generate the sorts of responses they were hoping for, they might tweak it or replace it with something else. So it is a dynamic process, and I suspect that also helps to cut down on the degree to which a formulaic approach is likely to be successful.
Speaking of which, they had an episode discussing AI (Episode 34: AI and College Essays: Wrong Question; Wrong Answer) where in fact they specifically analogized it to having someone else write your essay. They have an extended argument as to why they think that is more likely to be counterproductive than helpful, whether it is an AI or a human being trying to do that for you.
Because Brown is Brown and they can do that.
Very true that not every teen is a great writer…but these are elite schools and they can and do expect the Stem kids to be great writers (and the great writers to have challenged themselves in stem and had success). The elite schools have the luxury of getting 50-60k applications and they absolutely can and do use supplemental essays to suss out who is creative and can write. Both of mine lean introverted, both love reading and also have always been creative in writing. The essays were not terribly onerous(and one applied to 16 and had over 60 pages of a google doc on supplemental essays). To be truly honest: I remember that they had certain prompts for certain colleges that they loved! Sure they take some time, but if they are not enjoying the writing process at least somewhat, why are they doing it? One wrote about cooking a complex item in the most fascinating detail and also used it as a parallel to a specific facet of her personality . One was inspired by a very specific aspect of campus and used it as the framework for detailing precisely how the school fit her, and why , definitely showing not telling and in beautiful prose nonetheless. I never got to proofread some of their essays but I was asked to read these and others and was amazed. No essay coach just themselves pondering the questions and responding authentically and creatively. For some students this process brings out a creative side that makes it enjoyable. A slog of time for sure, but enjoyable in part. That joy came out in my kids’ essays: the AOs can discern it too I imagine.
For students who read the supplementals and have zero desire to write answers, my opinion is they shouldn’t force themselves to apply. It is likely not the right school if the essay prompts do not inspire you in part.
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By the way, I was just thinking back on the Yale Admissions Podcasts. And those folks sure do their best to sound really upbeat and positive about kids and college applications and such.
But between us–I really feel like if you paid close attention, you could start detecting certain themes regarding how they were basically getting way too many applications from kids they thought were just not being thoughtful about whether they were actually a good fit for Yale, as opposed to Yale being a very famous and highly-regarded college. And so a lot of the subtext of a lot of things, including the supplementals, was essentially about taking another angle on identifying those sorts of applicants and moving them out of the way of the kids they really want to consider in depth.
So I think what from the applicant’s perspective can seem like a really dubious increase in their work load, from the college’s perspective can actually seem like a time saver.
Which again is not a very pleasant way of looking at all this, but still, you don’t efficiently reject over 19 out of 20 applicants without having various tools at your disposal for doing that.
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Completely agree. I repeatedly here from many sources that an application is reviewed in less than 15 minutes and typically far less than 10 minutes on average. I cannot reconcile in my mind how an application can be reviewed that quickly with all the pieces AND do any justice to the review.
That said, I’ve never reviewed an application. It may very well be that things can be reviewed that quickly with no fall off in quality of review.
My 2 cents -
- Hate the vol, of supps, too, but also respect schools for having them.
- Agree, on apply to fewer and make them better.
- Go easy on the “isn’t meant to gauge writing skills” talk. Poor writing won’t shed light on a person either - or not in the way we all hope. It will make the applicant look unworthy on a relative basis. Yes you can use a comma instead of semi-colon - and throw in a dash or a fragment, but that is different IMO. I think better students are the ones who can take writing risks. Lesser students, should be more careful IMO.
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- great advice overall though.
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My sense is a lot of readers/committees pretty unabashedly plan to spend more time on applications where it appears from a quick review there is a real question of yes or no. So if they can quickly see they will want you, or quickly see they won’t, that may be more or less the end for you (good or bad). And then they spend way more time on the ones they are not quickly sure about.
Yale recently announced it had formalized this, but even informally, I have seen lots of hints of this sort of practice.
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As I specified in my original post, it’s different for elite schools to have the expectation. But many lower ranked schools also have supplementals.
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To the extent that the essays are meant to learn about the student’s personality rather than gauge writing skills, I really favor the applications that ask super short answer questions - the kind you don’t need to take hours of work to write, but tend to elicit authentic responses. Things like favorites list or where would you like to travel. These are not as intimidating because they’re not writing essays per se, just answering questions as they would when talking to a friend.
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With good planning, quality supplemental essays should be pretty easy to finish and might have a big influence.
I did review a stack of applications for a scholarship and it’s very difficult. I have the utmost respect for the admissions committee’s need to differentiate between students because it’s true that after a few, they all start to look the same.
I just would like a different way than just stacks of “essays.” I much prefer the simple questions, short answer questions like MIT does. UMD does something similar. You can sit down to write an application and not think hard about what to write because it’s meant to be authentic (the first things that come to mind) - they even tell you that if you’re thinking too much, you’re doing it wrong.
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I agree with the short answer questions. But in some ways those are more difficult to craft than medium/long essays.
@Rivet2000 you really think so? Easy to finish? We had a system abd a plan and re-used essays whenever possible. She got it done but I cannot imagine a scenario where it could possibly be “pretty easy” to finish 20+ quality supplements in 3-4 months while also taking a full course load, participating extensively in ECs (25+ hours a week) and senior year activities. Yes lots of kids do it…but no way is it “pretty easy” to get it done. At least not that I can imagine.
I promise I’m not trying to argue. I was just surprised by your response because I’ve never heard anyone say it’s easy. More power to you!
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I suppose it depends on the person - my kids find those easier to “not overthink” and just be authentic. Might not always have been the best answer but it was true and they didn’t spend a ton of time overthinking.