Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our college counselor told us optional is not really "optional" if you want to get it.

Also, make sure at VT you do not apply undecided.

As a general rule no, optional is not optional - you should provide essays when schools say something is optional. There are specific exceptions, however. VT truly doesn’t read and doesn’t want your common app essay.

Like SAT or ACT scores? Optional. But students are still submitting them if their scores are within the colleges' inflated test score range

No, I was specifically referring to essays marked as optional.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our college counselor told us optional is not really "optional" if you want to get it.

Also, make sure at VT you do not apply undecided.

As a general rule no, optional is not optional - you should provide essays when schools say something is optional. There are specific exceptions, however. VT truly doesn’t read and doesn’t want your common app essay.

Like SAT or ACT scores? Optional. But students are still submitting them if their scores are within the colleges' inflated test score range

Anonymous wrote:For a mid-tier school, this seems annoyingly pretentious.

You mean the fluff essay?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a mid-tier school, this seems annoyingly pretentious.

You’ll be the first twit complaining when your kid doesn’t get in, but do go on.

No, my kids got in but went somewhere else. But he found their app annoying.

Sure.

DP here. Why the wink? Is it really that unbelievable that someone would choose another university over VT? 😂 Get over yourself!

Anonymous wrote:For a mid-tier school, this seems annoyingly pretentious.

You sound annoyingly like a Crazy Unicorn Needing Tea.

Anonymous wrote:Hoping someone who’s been through the VT app can help me out. On the Common App under the College Information tab, it says the Common App Personal Essay is optional, but then a few lines later under "Use of Specific", it says VT does not read the Common App essay. Can anyone confirm which is correct? Is the essay optional but still read, or is it truly not considered at all? I know there are the 4 Ut Prosim questions, but my kid was thinking of reworking their Common App essay into one of those if the main essay doesn’t get looked at.

The essay and supplementals are super important on the VT application. It’s one of the few places for differentiating.

Highly recommend everyone listen to this podcast episode from Sept with Juan Espinoza from VT. He answers all the questions in this thread, from whether they read the Common App essay (spoiler: they don't), why they use their own 4 essays instead (provides them with different info that they're looking for), and how and why they're using AI this year to read essays (they have piloted this for 3 years and all data shows it is within 2 points of the human reader).

I have 2 happy kids at VT. My senior is studying engineering, has had paid internships every summer, and is currently interviewing for jobs for next year (with one good offer already in hand). She turned down a T10 for VT with no regrets. Is living her best life up there in Blacksburg! My freshman is enjoying it so far too.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-truth-about-ai-and-essay-reading-juan-espinoza/id1649349413?i=1000727030549

Let’s be clear. VT uses AI as one of the readers. So it is sort of annoying they don’t just have the computer assess the common app essay while it is rating the other essays.

Even if you "send" via CA, I think they just suppress it and won't even see it. They do not read it.

My child is at Virginia Tech for engineering. They 100% do not read common ap essay. The most important is the supplement essays. Answer questions as asked and to the point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a mid-tier school, this seems annoyingly pretentious.

You’ll be the first twit complaining when your kid doesn’t get in, but do go on.

No, my kids got in but went somewhere else. But he found their app annoying.

Sure.

VT does not read the common app main essay. Just the 4 short answer questions. They’ve communicated it multiple times. We followed their directions and my student was admitted in-state engineering.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There should be a comment in Naviance that tells you that they do not read the common app essay. Just their essays.

The common app literally they won't read it but a few lines above it, it says it's optional. It's confusing.

NP. I think the issue is that Common App does not distinguish between "optional" and "we don't use it at all." Common App didn't set it up to do so. The schools not using the personal statement simply say "optional." It's unclear communication on the part of Common App.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a mid-tier school, this seems annoyingly pretentious.

You’ll be the first twit complaining when your kid doesn’t get in, but do go on.

No, my kids got in but went somewhere else. But he found their app annoying.

Surprised that VT is requiring four 120-word essays. Even the Vanderbilt and Univ. of Michigan ones aren't as intense.