Early planning helps, and you can actually start writing very early. “Why me” essays can be started way, way early. Other, more unique prompts (letter to your roommate) associated with certain schools can be started early as well. With smart reuse, and planning it can be easy(ier). At some key points, students need to set priorities. There were times for our S, when it was academics, then college apps, then ECs and other. At other times, more time for ECs. It may have been that since our S had struggles writing non-technical papers, that he planned early, started early, and had great results.
But even then, smart thinking can tie thoughts together, like in the example cited up-thread: Favorite food: Tacos. City you most want to visit: Mexico City to eat tacos…for the win
11 that had supplementals and 5 that did not. Several had 3-4 supplements each. Her primary EC was extremely time consuming and not really possible to cut back on without quitting completely, which was never considered since it was her primary “leadership” role and something she is continuing in college. So she was just super busy anyway no matter what and there was just no way to make writing that many essays “easy”, even with reuse. She did choose to NOT write the “optional” essay at two schools. She felt she needed to apply to a lot of options because she had a specific, competitive EC goal and was looking to find a school that met all of her academic and EC interests.
Is 16 colleges typical where you live? My kids HS is still recommending 6-8. I know a few kids in the last few years who did 10-12 (divorced situations with uncertain NPC’s) but many only apply to 4. It’s still a lot, but manageable.
My kids could NEVER have done a quality job on the number of apps your D did. No way.
No. 16 is A LOT. Again it had to do with her EC. She had to get accepted to college and accepted to continue her EC. So she had to cast a wide net in hopes of making both cuts.
And I specifically sought ought schools with no supplementals to augment her list!
Yes! It was too much really. And so, so hard. I think the trauma from that experience is what led me to start this thread as we are now starting to think about colleges for my 2026 grad. And believe me…whether and how many supplemental essays a possible school has is definitely one of the criteria we are looking at when making her list!!
I’ll be honest- one of the reasons my kids were able to streamline their “application season” had nothing to do with how complicated an individual college’s process was… it was more around being happy with the rock solid safety school which we could afford.
IMHO that’s the key. Nail down the safety-- get that application out the door- and then the rest is gravy. One kid would come home every week from HS saying “I thought about it and I’m dumping XYZ college from the list”. I’d say “are you sure?” and the answer was “I don’t really see myself there”.
Ok. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was that the “frenemy” in the class told everyone it was number 1 on the list. Maybe too many supplementals. Maybe too many gargoyles on the buildings. Maybe the thought of two Greyhound buses with a two hour layover in nowheresville lost its charm. Who knows.
But once the application goes out on the rock solid safety, kid can dump as many colleges as they want to, right???
I’d be focused on finding the safeties. Makes everything easier!
I 100% agree about the safety. There was really only one school on her list that was a safety for admission and safety for EC. I’ll be honest - I found her for her and sold her on it because DID have everything she wanted from an academic and EC standpoint…but it was never going to be something she was super happy about. Fortunately, it didn’t require a supplement! And has rolling admissions so she got in in October!
But it’s tough to have a true safety when there’s a second cut involved later. She had some other academic safeties that were going to be reaches from an EC standpoint. And huge academic reaches that were safeties for EC.
So for my 2026…I know you’re supposed to let the kid take the lead but I’ve definitely done the initial research to come up with schools for her to research further. Our “big” list includes a bunch of schools with no supplements and 14 schools that have supplements. She definitely won’t apply to all of those, and I’ve already been talking to her about how much work it is to do all the supplements.
I’m hoping she chooses to limit her applications so that she “only” has to write a personal statement (Common App) an Artist Statement (she plans to study art) plus no more than a very few additional essays. And, of course, her portfolio…which is its own beast. Since one of her college choices has 7 supplements, and since it’s a huge reach, I’m going to suggest she think very hard about whether she keeps it on her list. At least we are starting early…
Fair warning. S24 and some of his peers added some extra colleges to their RD lists basically because they didn’t have supplements (or just like a academic paper option), and I believe none of those worked out. Some waitlistings (looking at you, Middlebury), some rejections, but it just didn’t seem to add options.
Now obviously those colleges do admit people. But I think you have to try to figure out how they make it work without supplementals and satisfy whatever that is instead.
Agree and I’m all over it this time. My second rodeo. I’ve got two separate safety/target/reach lists with and without supplements…all with strong art programs.
My D24 did get in to several of her no-supplement schools that we added last minute. But she didn’t really want to go to any of them. So there’s that.
I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating- we made the kids find something nice to say about every single college we visited (or explored in depth online). And recorded it. It’s too easy for your kid to say “this place is ugly” or “the dorms are gross” or “the weather stinks” or whatever it is that kids say when they hate a college.
But our attitude was that there is ALWAYS something positive if you look for it (and sometimes the kids did need to dig). And that’s what saved us come list-making time. Parents put the rock solid safety which comes in well under budget on the list. Kid says “I’d never go there, I hate it”. You pull out the notes- recorded in the car as you were leaving, “The study abroad program in Ecuador and the Galapagos is really unique- I don’t think any of the other bio programs had that” or “It’s really cool that the equestrian club runs therapeutic riding programs for kids with disabilities in the community. I’d love to volunteer for that and learn how to ride at the same time”.
It’s just too easy to dismiss the entire “safety school” phenomenon. But many, many, many kids end up at their safety school for a variety of reasons, and finding something to love about it from the git-go is an important psychological tool.
Another option is to decode how schools like Northeastern and Middlebury admit without supplemental essays. Once you figure out there are no supplemental essays to write …
Seriously, there are pretty good public schools with no supplemental essays to write.
I don’t expect this is applicable in many cases and probably depends on the student’s interests and/or circumstances.
For instance, there are kids who do have a good safety they would be happy to attend but still want to try for other schools. There seems to be a fallacy on this board that if a student is applying to more than 15 schools that the student is just aiming for high reaches but there are students who have applied to more than this number of schools where only 3-5 of the schools would be in the category high reaches. Most of the schools on the lists were out of state public schools that would fall into the reach/target/likely category. The problem is that for some students applying to difficult to get into majors like computer science, normal target schools can be reaches and a student may not know their chance since the numbers can increase quite a bit from one year to the next. For other students, it’s hard to gauge their chances at any school due to a lack of guidance or a combination of both of these situations. There are also some programs for which there doesn’t seem to be a good safety such as musical theater. I think that advice is good in normal situations - for instance when the school counselor has a history of placing students interested in a given major into the schools the student would be interested in. It may be that an increasing number of applicants no longer fall within the normal circumstances.
This. My S25 is applying to a long list of schools because 1) they are kind of an unusual package and a school will have to “get” them and 2) we need financial aid/merit. They have a couple of reachy reaches but the majority of their list is made up of targets and safeties. They will be drowning in supplements over the next few weeks.
I agree with your post but wanted to respond to this small point specifically in case it helps someone…Columbia Chicago has a no-audition BA in Musical Theater and an overall acceptance rate of 94%! I hear they are having financial difficulty though so not sure what that means for the future…
Depends on the school as some are far more work than others. Also some do not require supplemental essays for the application but have essays for the Honors College. There are also some that may require supplemental essays for certain programs.
as we are now starting to think about colleges for my 2026 grad. And believe me…whether and how many supplemental essays a possible school has is definitely one of the criteria we are looking at when making her list!!