<p>I know a lot of you were worried about writing similar essays in light of this, so I talked to Dean Nondorf about why he decided to send out the essay, and whether or not this has any ill effect on sending in similar responses. </p>
<p>He says,</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with sending similar essays (with our uncommon prompts, it is not “uncommon” to receive similar essays- it is expected- and that it does not reflect poorly on the applicant. For those writing with totally different styles and tones, I tried to point out at the end of the e-mail that this is just one example of a student response to the prompt.</p>
<p>Finally, please pass on a sincere apology if it did not hit the mark on my goal: to lighten the mood when students are stressed about essays. The most frequent questions I get are about the essays and the clear stress students feel in putting them together. Sending out Rohan’s response was an honest attempt to ease that stress without an ulterior motive – really.</p>
<p>Hopefully Dean Nondorf’s response can help with some of the fears many of you had after reading Rohan’s essay and realizing that yours were similar, or that you had also had a similar style in mind. Don’t worry about it! We sent out the essay to lighten the mood, but it seems that it might have backfired a bit. Feel free to respond to the question in any way- whether similar to Rohan’s response or in a form of your own- that you feel best represents you.</p>