Reply to elite colleges with no supplemental essays?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]In all honesty, if your kid isn’t willing to write a 250-500 word supplemental essay, they are going to hate any elite or private university. My kids are both at small top 20s and have written their asses off.[/b] My freshman has already written four 5-7 page papers for two of her classes, and several smaller writing assignments. Her other two classes are comp sci and calculus, so luckily no paper writing in those. My senior has written papers for most of her classes as an Econ major outside of math and programming classes, and will spend her last semester writing a thesis. 
Large public universities with large lecture classes rarely require writing unless the student is in a writing based major. The professors just can’t read and grade hundreds of papers. Large universities love multiple choice scantron tests.  [/quote]

NP. Came to say basically this, the bold above.

I suspect the issue for many on this thread is either "My kid wants to apply to a long list of 'elites' and doesn't have time/bandwidth to do so many essays" and/or "My kid doesn't like to write that much/doesn't know what to say/doesn't want to  make the effort to tailor essays for specific schools."

Neither is a good way to think about the process. As another PP already noted, if something is listed as optional but it's for a college you really want -- you do the optional essay. If a kid is applying to places based on avoiding essays, that's a terrible criterion to use in something as serious as applying for college. A student who can't manage, or is intimidated by, multiple admissions essays of so few words (and these are so short they aren't even really "essays") is going to find it a struggle to deal with the homework load and test expectations in a lot of colleges. I know, DCUM, I know: It's all about just getting the acceptance and your kids will do great once they're in the door, college homework isn't like these essays, etc. etc. I know how the responses on DCUM run. But letting "no supplementals, hooray!" be the way a kid picks places--that's setting the bar pretty low. [/quote]

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