Application Essays

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Application Essays

by Stockmoose16 » Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:19 pm
Lisa,

Do you have any recommendations on how to start the application process? I'm applying to Harvard, MIT, Duke, UCLA, UT-Austin, and USC, and I haven't started writing the essays. I've got about 5 weeks to get everything done. Is there enough overlap between these schools essays that I can get away with only writing 5 or 6 essays with slight modifications for each school?
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by Lisa Anderson » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:18 pm
Dear Stockmoose16,

I hope you are a great writer as completing 6 applications in 5 weeks is quite ambitious, but not impossible. The best way to answer your question is for you to compare the essay questions from your target schools. For your sake, I hope you find some commonalities between them all.

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by Stockmoose16 » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:27 pm
Lisa,

Why do you say that completing 6 applications is ambitious? Most of the schools only have 4 or 5 essays of less than 500 words each. I write for a living, but I've spent quite a few days procrastinating, because I can't figure out exactly what I'm supposed to write.

Shouldn't 35 days be enough time to write 24 essays? And it's not really 24 essays, since every school asks about your long/short term goals.