Secondary Burnout

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Did you prewrite any? How many prompts would you say were repeated?
 
Feeling your pain! I started to feel a little better once I turned my first secondary in. Now I'm feeling better because my intensive writing English class ended at midnight (woohoo! Now I only have intensive writing secondaries). It's difficult, for sure. And it sounds like I'm writing a similar number. We can get through this!
 
I felt the same way, I eventually got there. Now I have to finish Duke and write an autobiography by my self imposed deadline of Thurs then i will be done!
 
SuaveCardigans said:
I felt the same way, I eventually got there. Now I have to finish Duke and write an autobiography by my self imposed deadline of Thurs then i will be done!
Click to expand...

Oh, you'll be writing until Labor Day with that Duke one 😉

For real, good luck! That was my longest secondary, but it was also the second one I submitted, so I think that helped me get through the rest (knowing that I finished the most difficult one).
 
DBC03 said:
Oh, you'll be writing until Labor Day with that Duke one 😉

For real, good luck! That was my longest secondary, but it was also the second one I submitted, so I think that helped me get through the rest (knowing that I finished the most difficult one).
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I have about half of their essays drafted so thankfully not starting from scratch. I will have to see if I can sneak some time for it during work this week as well
 
I'm happy to say that 28 are submitted, 2 are completed and ready to submit after one more edit, 1 is close to completed, and 2 are all that I need fresh material for. I think I may finish by Sunday. Assuming the last two schools don't let me past their screen.
 
Finishing up my 36th secondary right now, my brain is fried.
 
I've done 20 applications and still have to edit a few of them. Cannot imagine doing another 10 more. I've seen some people suggesting reusing duplicate prompts and can echo that this is a good suggestion.

Remember to take care of yourself. Exercise and stepping away from writing can help. I don't know what helps you the most, but sitting down and working for a set amount of time helps me stay focused, while giving me built in time to break. Work while you work and keep your mind away from it when you relax (as best you can).

Best of luck to you. You'll thank yourself when the II's start coming, (in part) from well-written secondaries.
 
Just to jump on what @gonnif stated - I have saved all of my completed secondary essays in one file (aside from the REALLY long secondaries, which have their own separate files). The prompts and essays, all single spaced, have filled up far more than 60 pages. Add at least 15 to 20 additional pages of prompts/responses from long secondary schools and you have a LOT of writing. I've been able to adapt many essays for many schools, so I haven't necessarily written 60 pages of unique essays. However, you absolutely must take the amount of writing - and thinking - into account during application season. I prioritized my secondaries and wrote the ones for the schools that were highest on my list and that I had the best chance of getting an acceptance. I definitely got faster (and better) at writing these as time went on, which means my later schools might have slightly better secondaries than my earlier schools. But I don't think there was a significant enough difference to warrant concern.
 
The trick to this is Essay/Paragraph recycling. Write maybe 20 paragraphs that can be mixed and matched to create an essay with different themes that answer most questions. Once you have it down, its just about editing which is substantially easier. I hate writing essays so this process was especially taxing.
 
Is it common for schools to reuse secondary questions from the previous year?
Would it help to reflect beforehand on common secondary topics?
 
Donna Moss said:
Is it common for schools to reuse secondary questions from the previous year?
Would it help to reflect beforehand on common secondary topics?
Click to expand...
Yes. They are typically the same exact prompts. It is easy to get a huge jumpstart on them by beginning to write them early in the year you plan to apply. You could crank out 1 a week and you could easily have them completely finished before you even submit your application in June. Yes, you might have to go back and change a few answers on some schools that switched up a couple prompts or completely re-do a couple schools that did a wholesale change on their prompts...but you would still have 90-95% of them done and ready to go.
 
Donna Moss said:
Is it common for schools to reuse secondary questions from the previous year?
Would it help to reflect beforehand on common secondary topics?
Click to expand...

I started "prewriting" for secondaries in June. Most schools reused many secondary questions. Some, like Duke, changed one or two. Others, like VCU, have completely new topics each year. If you go to the school specific threads for the year before, you can get a sense of whether schools reuse topics or create completely new ones. It's not a perfect system, but I definitely recommend starting on them before getting the actual secondaries. Also, there's a theme throughout many - the "diversity" essay, the "adversity/challenge" essay, the "why do you want to go here" essay, etc. I recommend finding a school with a Diversity or Adversity essay prompt and a generous character or word count and working very hard on writing solid essays for those. Then you can shorten and modify them as necessary for different character lengths and prompts. Keep in mind that each prompt is unique, and you need to modify your responses accordingly (ie make sure you are actually answering the question asked and not just reusing an essay because you're too tired to write a new one). I hope that helps a little. I think being a reapplicant would be easier in some ways because I have learned so much going through this the first time. It's a learning curve.
 
At 24 secondaries completed out of 35... the burnout is real
 
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