Anonymous wrote:Harvard essay is optional

So it might be optional but any time something is optional, you should do it.

i think oberlin has no additional essays.

Anonymous wrote:Pitt

Pitt is not an elite school.

I believe Norhtwestern only has a very short “why Northwestern” essay (in addition to the Common App essay).

My DS applied to Wake Forest years ago. At the time, they had at least 8 mini additional essays. Not sure if it’s still the same currently.

Harvard essay is optional

Northeastern and Case Western both ranked at #44 by USN&WR are the closest to elite or elites without supplemental essay.

I believe there are a couple of high ranked LACs without supplemens too.

Purpose of supplemental essay is to admit highly-qualified students that are right fit to the schools.

Northeastern is like T10 in retention rate meaning they select highly-qualified right fit students for the school even without asking the annoying extra questions. Schools should have plenty of information already.

Pitt

W&M Has an “optional” supplemental essay (that is not optional). But there is no assigned topic. Your kid can submit an essay on anything.

Nor sure if this is elite (some people think it is), but Northeastern did not have supplemental essays last year.

Since my kid doubted her chances a couple of years ago, she tried to limit her applications to colleges that required less writing. Most of the Ivies and Stanford have quite a few, but she applied to Cornell and only had to write one specifically for CALS and Northwestern only had a short "Why Northwestern?" essay back then. Several of LACs like Wesleyan, Carleton, Middlebury, Bowdoin (might've been 1-2 essays), Grinnell (optional "why Grinnell"), Oberlin, Swarthmore (1), Macalester (1-2?), Kenyon, etc. had very little additional writing required other than the Common App essay. I think Emory and Duke had 2-3 essays (some optional).

Middlebury

clemson

and conversely, which colleges have the most supplemental essays..

i told my DC they don’t exist lol..