Supplemental essay prompts have not been released.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just checked colleges' website, many schools (Penn, Emory for example) have not released/updated the supplemental essay prompts at this time. Can we assume the essay prompts stay the same? Or is it better to wait until the schools officially update the essay prompts? DC would like to start working on essay during the rest of the summer. Thanks.

Here’s Emory. Penn will be soon, I’m sure.

https://internationalcollegecounselors.com/in-the-essay/

[Anonymous]

I agree with the others that basic Why Us (for each school) and Why Major outlines will be helpful to work on in the meantime. Some schools will have a single supplement where Why Major and Why Us may be combined.

Common App opens in 11 days. Relax and take time with the above outlines.

[Anonymous]

They're all pretty much the same. Start the essays for one school and you'll have basic material for any other school's essays.

My kid applied to about 20 top30 schools and recycled most essay material with some small changes. the only one that obviously varied by school is the "why us?" type essay which you can also do now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just checked colleges' website, many schools (Penn, Emory for example) have not released/updated the supplemental essay prompts at this time. Can we assume the essay prompts stay the same? Or is it better to wait until the schools officially update the essay prompts? DC would like to start working on essay during the rest of the summer. Thanks.

Here’s Emory. Penn will be soon, I’m sure.

https://internationalcollegecounselors.com/in-the-essay/

Thanks for posting! This is also useful to compare one year to the next, for those of us with rising juniors.

Off-topic, I just love Sarah Lawrence’s spin on this one:

3. In the syllabus of a 2023 majority decision of the Supreme Court written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the author notes: “Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.” Drawing upon examples from your life, a quality of your character, and/or a unique ability you possess, describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced, or affected by the Court’s decision.

[Anonymous]

(To clarify, that was a prompt for LAST year, not this year ^)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the research now for each school. Use the website, social media and school newspaper.

Create a new google doc for each school, and links to on campus ECs, events, classes, professors. Research on major should be listed too. Research what each school’s mission is and what their AO says they look for in applications. For each school, include school traditions, and location specific amenities that align with your profile.

Believe me it will come in handy to know what Stanford’s Symbolic Systems major entails in one place. Plus having a document that helps you show your alignment to the school’s ethos will be like an outline or roadmap and make writing a breeze.

In my experience, this is VERY useful for a Stanford application. When DC applied there, the supplements covered stuff like this. I think Stanford had 8 that year!

So IMO this is overkill for other schools and will be a complete waste of time. My kid only used the mission statement for each school. 15 apps, 1 rejection.

[Anonymous]

In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the research now for each school. Use the website, social media and school newspaper.

Create a new google doc for each school, and links to on campus ECs, events, classes, professors. Research on major should be listed too. Research what each school’s mission is and what their AO says they look for in applications. For each school, include school traditions, and location specific amenities that align with your profile.

Believe me it will come in handy to know what Stanford’s Symbolic Systems major entails in one place. Plus having a document that helps you show your alignment to the school’s ethos will be like an outline or roadmap and make writing a breeze.

In my experience, this is VERY useful for a Stanford application. When DC applied there, the supplements covered stuff like this. I think Stanford had 8 that year!

So IMO this is overkill for other schools and will be a complete waste of time. My kid only used the mission statement for each school. 15 apps, 1 rejection.

Thank you. This is a good point too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has he already completed his common app essay and list of activities? If yes, he's far ahead and it's ok that he needs to wait until August 1 before starting the supplements. If not, he should focus on that.

Yes, the common app essay is done. Junior year English class second semester had that as a class project.

Have him look at it again. DC grew a lot as a writer and was in a different mindset on college apps from end of jr year to when the first app was due.

Good point, with the activities DC has done since then, DC may have a different mindset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

Reading between the lines, admissions doesn’t set them anymore. She’s mentioned that more people are involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

Reading between the lines, admissions doesn’t set them anymore. She’s mentioned that more people are involved.

That seems likely since the word “race” is included in last year’s. Still, shouldn’t they have already been uploaded to common app since it opens next week? You’d think they’d be able to share them on the blog now if they wanted to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

Reading between the lines, admissions doesn’t set them anymore. She’s mentioned that more people are involved.

Yes, the General Counsel's office is involved in this at almost all top schools (now).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

Reading between the lines, admissions doesn’t set them anymore. She’s mentioned that more people are involved.

That seems likely since the word “race” is included in last year’s. Still, shouldn’t they have already been uploaded to common app since it opens next week? You’d think they’d be able to share them on the blog now if they wanted to.

Looking back, the change was two years ago. https://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2023/07/2023-2024-uva-writing-prompts.html

Confession: I really liked last year's writing prompts. We had only been reading applications for a few days when I first marveled at how well students were expressing themselves in the new short answer portion of our application. During one of my live q&a sessions on Instagram, I wondered if students being able to write meaningful, concise statements was a function of growing up writing captions on social media...something for people to study one day!

In the past, a few admission officers have met to go over feedback about the application essays to see if we should tweak the writing prompts. This year, we had a lot more input during the update process. The change is pretty big: most applicants will answer one prompt for the UVA portion of the Common App. Those applying to the School of Nursing will answer two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In previous years, DeanJ had posted essays in the blog early but nothing yet. I haven’t been regularly watching her lives - has UVA confirmed essays?

DC is also done with common app so just focusing on supplemental for the rest of summer. Not currently working in priority order because top two schools they currently like haven’t posted yet

Reading between the lines, admissions doesn’t set them anymore. She’s mentioned that more people are involved.

That seems likely since the word “race” is included in last year’s. Still, shouldn’t they have already been uploaded to common app since it opens next week? You’d think they’d be able to share them on the blog now if they wanted to.

Looking back, the change was two years ago. https://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2023/07/2023-2024-uva-writing-prompts.html

Confession: I really liked last year's writing prompts. We had only been reading applications for a few days when I first marveled at how well students were expressing themselves in the new short answer portion of our application. During one of my live q&a sessions on Instagram, I wondered if students being able to write meaningful, concise statements was a function of growing up writing captions on social media...something for people to study one day!

In the past, a few admission officers have met to go over feedback about the application essays to see if we should tweak the writing prompts. This year, we had a lot more input during the update process. The change is pretty big: most applicants will answer one prompt for the UVA portion of the Common App. Those applying to the School of Nursing will answer two.

Any clues if this is changing next week for the upcoming admissions cycle?