A Four Year Investment

If you’re a student who is grappling with whether you want to spend the time to complete a particular college’s supplement, allow us to weigh in. If you’re not willing to spend the hours to write essays specifically for this one particular school, then perhaps it’s not the right fit for you. Perhaps if you’re not willing to invest five or ten or 20 hours on a given supplement, it’s not a place you should call home for four long years.

Every year, lazy students across the nation and around the world say something like this: “The University of Chicago has two really long essays and it’s not like I can repurpose them for other schools. I’d be writing them only for UChicago.” And if it’s not UChicago, it’s Vanderbilt or Tulane, Cornell or Johns Hopkins — depending on the student. But that’s absolutely ridiculous if you ask us. After all, when a school gives applicants the space to make their case with two long essays, for instance, it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for these students to tell their stories, to inspire admissions officers to want to root for them. And it’s an opportunity for these students to demonstrate their love for the given institution since — if done right — admissions officers know they wrote these essays only for their institution.

So if you aren’t willing to put in the hours to devote to crafting a great application for a particular school, might we suggest you not apply? If you can’t spend four hours or even four days, why spend four years? If you can’t tell, yes, we’re absolutely shaking our heads.