Question on Secondary App Essays

[Ion1776]

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Do those essay questions posted under each school on the specific school discussion page change on a year by year basis? If someone plans on applying to 25 schools, thats alot of essays in a short period of time. (Ex. UCLA has 8 essay questions.....)

 

[Bernoull]

They can change, but they don't change every year. A lot of schools recycle essays, and the essays tend to ask the same types of questions.

 

[vc7777]

If you submit your primary ASAP, not all will be available at the same time, thankfully. Some you may even be able to work on before your primary is completed (Yale comes to mind, if I recall correctly). Many will be available later in the cycle as schools begin to accept and request secondary apps.

Keep in mind, you should put thought and effort into each any every essay that you write. If you are just 'going through the motions', it will be obvious. Much like the MCAT preparations, it requires some discipline to get through many essays.

However, at this point in the game, I would focus on your Personal Statement. Without a good PS, you may not even get Secondaries. No sense putting the cart before the horse. This, of course, is assuming you are an applicant for this upcoming cycle. If not, I don't think your cart is even in the same county as the horse...

Good luck.

 

[RevMD]

A lot of secondary apps simply require filling out some redundant info on LORs, listing course pre-reqs completed, and paying the fees. Many of them purposefully have short essays with a 250-500 word limit as well, which should save time. So, while 25 might seem like a lot, chances are half of them might not take more a few hours to fill out.

 

[vc7777]

True, however to quote Mark Twain:

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
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Keeping an excellent essay short is possibly the most difficult part of the this aspect of applying. When you have many points you wish to touch upon, you may find you go over the limit. Paring down the essay may be very time-consuming too.

So don't confuse shorter essays with shorter time to write. To the contrary.