Supplementary Essays

  If you sre planning to apply EA or ED you should be done with your common app by this stage - all that remains   are the supplementary essays.

  Apart from a few schools that have very involved supplements like Caltech and the University of Chicago   most follow a  few standard prompts  on the lines of :

1. What is your intended major. How did you develop this interest. How do you intend to pursue this at  University X

2.  Why  University X. How do you intend to pursue your academic and extra curricular interests at University.

3. A question about career goals and the role that University X will play in reaching them

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 The key to this essay is to customize it to each school. If you happened to visit -  you can use that as a  part of your essay. On my visit to campus - I was most impressed by how the  faculty knew several students by name or even - my lunch in the student union was the best campus meal I had during my   college tours.

 Basically all the schools you wil be applying to will have  great faculty,  a smart motivated peer group, a vibrant urban location and  peaceful close knit family atmosphere.   Be specific to each school- mention labs, faculty  and local landmarks by name

  When faced with  four or five of the same essays there is a great temptation to copy paste.

 This is dangerous - many students forget to change the university name in each essay or  they forget to change the name of a particular   department/college.   The Ross school  of business is at Michigan.  An Admissions  officer will latch on the each of these and they can easily disqualify you.

 The team at the University of  Illinois provides some good tips as well:

 As always contact us at clearskyeducation for any last minute  help