Any film school especially USC and NYU! There are many portfolio requirements on top of standard application requirements. Here is what is required for USC
For standard app:
1 required Why USC essay
10 required short answer essays
1 optional educational progression essay
For film production portfolio requirements:
1 personal statement
Either a 4-minute description of film with no dialogue or short screenplay
Creative Portfolio list
Creative Team question
1-minute video introduction of yourself (in one take)
Short film sample based on a prompt
My S got into 3/6 film schools he submitted to including USC where he is now. He started working on essays and other requirements his junior year. If I had another child applying to film school I would encourage them to start even earlier. So insane.
They were very short answers – not one word but limited characters for a sentence or two as I recall. And yes, this was the easiest part of the application by far. The 5 minute film on topic – not so much – taking over a month to do on his own during the pandemic.
There are also schools like Duke. They have i believe 3 supplemental essays but do not score them because of concerns about AI. Does anybody know how these essays impact the application process?
Actually they use essays as a means of understanding the applicant, but do not assess the writing ability of the applicant from the essay. Explained in the link below:
Good to know but is there any other kind of evaluation - even a written one that summarizes the fit of the student for the school? You don’t need a numerical score but there has to be some evaluation of some sort or why bother asking for an essay?
One interesting alternative which was something a student I am familiar with encountered when applying to an engineering program in Canada was answering two video prompts in a timely manner. One had to do with explaining the approach that one would take to solve a problem and I think the other was an essay type of prompt. I suppose the essay prompt could be prepared to some extent through preparing for expected questions but this kind of approach may help eliminate or at least reduce assistance, AI or otherwise, on these types of essay prompts.
I didn’t think universities used the essay to assess writing ability? I thought the essay was more about assessing fit for the school? I could be wrong about this but I thought if there was a score associated with an essay, the score would reflect how well the student conveyed their fit for the school rather than how eloquent the essay was.
You are right it is more about fit. Narrative skills are indirectly assessed as a good essay needs writing ability. Not sure the AOs can separate the two. Maybe somebody with more knowledge can chime in.
I note the ultimate “evaluation” at colleges like this is usually a committee discussion and then decision. So presumably the content of essays could be discussed in committee without there ever being some sort of numerical scoring.
But of course the readers could also write down some qualitative assessments in advance to help guide that discussion. At least as I read it, that would not be inconsistent with what Duke reported.
Some schools may assess writing ability on the common app personal statement qualitatively/using notes, maybe some even do quantitatively measure writing ability on this essay.
There are varying ways that relatively selective schools read and evaluate/score files, and because staff/leadership turnover is so high in admissions, admissions practices at the school level can change often. Not all files make it to an admissions discussion phase at all highly rejective schools.
IME schools that use supplements do primarily focus on various fit measures with those, but let’s not fool ourselves how easy it can be to put together a good “why us” essay with basic research as demonstrated by any number of websites offering excellent and free direction like college essay guy, who IMO has done more to improve access/equity in admissions than just about anyone.
Yes but that would still be evaluative. You don’t need numerical scoring for there to be an evaluation of something like fit of student for the school. In fact, some universities didn’t report grades but rather provided written teacher evaluations which should be more informative than a letter grade or numerical score.
True but I do think students whose families hire professionals to help do have an edge over those who are just accessing free resources online much like it might help some families to pay for SAT tutoring vs. relying solely on Khan Academy. However, having Khan and other free resources help bridge that gap.
Is that opinion based on any data though? (of course one can have any opinion they want, I’m just asking.) I’m talking about essay writing.
Most competent college counselors don’t write a student’s essay, they help brainstorm and edit, much like an English teacher (at least one who understand college essay writing.) I also want to be very clear I am not talking about international ‘agents’, who IME can cross the essay writing line.
I don’t disagree that some students aren’t motivated enough to watch college essay guy essay brainstorming videos and then do the exercises on their own, or do Khan SAT modules on their own. But some students are.
Separately, this cycle I have seen some of the worst applications I’ve ever seen from disadvantaged students who had counseling help via several CBO/college access orgs (none of the ‘big’ names.) It was shocking, sad, and IME fundamentally unethical for those counselors to be helping students. There are no easy answers out there in terms of increasing access.
I don’t have data and I doubt data would be available but it’s really just common sense. If one has a professional with experience who can actually help with drafts and do one on one sessions with the student to try to bring out certain points during brainstorming sessions etc, that is going to be much more helpful than just getting tips on how to brainstorm or what are ways to approach an essay without personal feedback. It’s akin to the difference between using tax software versus hiring a tax professional.
Would the latter sometimes do a bad job and do worse than the software? Yes. But likely that person won’t be in the business for long. The software is a general tool that can help but a tax professional would likely be able to zone in on areas where there might be tax savings. Another analogy would be courses offered through Coursera vs. those where you are enrolled in school and get personal feedback. Sure, it’s possible that everything can be learned from the Coursera course but if there is a misunderstanding of a concept, a student may never even know whereas having a teacher there would likely pick up on the student’s misunderstanding.
I can believe this but if these are professionals getting paid for this service, they are unlikely to gain a good reputation for their work and soon will no longer be contracted for their assistance. And yes, there are no easy answers but maybe the best way would be for schools to have expectations set accordingly. I think they try to do this but I expect at least some of the time they fall short.
