The Application is Trying to Tell You Something
The Common Application was supposed to make your application process more streamlined—but even schools that accept the Common App want to put their own unique stamp on your submission. Why? It’s not just to make your life more difficult (though that’s part of it!). If an application or its supplemental questions are driving you crazy, you might want to consider what that’s telling you.
Ivy League applications are notoriously long, with several supplements and sometimes even reading lists. Why? Simple: They don’t want you to apply. OK, maybe not *you* specifically, dear reader—but the schools are overrun with applications. It may seem snobby of them to discourage applicants, but consider their position. Many, many students apply to these schools just because. They want to get in so they can brag that they did it. They may or may not have even considered if they can afford, or would be happy, let alone successful, at these schools. And that is a waste of the school’s time. The same rule applies for Honors Colleges within larger universities. The extra work on the application is there to remind you that it will be extra work after you’re accepted, too. If you’re passionate about an education at one of these elite schools, by all means pour your heart and soul into the application package. But if your enthusiasm is dragging every time you consider the supplements you have yet to write, it might be time to evaluate if you even want to get in.
Other times, it’s not the length but the style of the application that should give you pause. The University of Chicago has the funniest and craziest supplemental essay questions I’ve come across, including the famous, “A hot dog might be a sandwich, and cereal might be a soup, but is a ______ a ______?” (To which I say: Of course a hot dog is a sandwich. So is a taco. So is sushi. Go ahead, prove me wrong.) The application even allows prospective students to choose from dozens of past supplements to answer the prompt that most speaks to them—each prompt crazier than the last. If you can’t explain what, exactly, is so odd about odd numbers, or you’re having trouble creating your own idiom, it’s worth considering whether the struggle is worth it. I don’t mean you’re not smart enough for the school—I just mean that this smorgasbord of prompts, all submitted by alumni, is deliberate—it’s not meant to be too hard (at least, I don’t think so!) but to introduce you to the character of the university. If you enjoy writing an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard, then this might be the right school for you. If you don’t, it might be that even if you got in, you wouldn’t be happy there. After all, your classmates would be the type of people who wonder how Olive Garden can actually offer unlimited breadsticks (given the limited nature of matter in the universe). At the University of Vermont, on the other hand, after writing up to 500 words on Which Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor (real or imagined) best describes you? you can be fairly confident your peers like ice cream. And I don’t think anyone could have a problem with that.
(Photos by Mark Cruz and Frank Zhang on Unsplash)
