Departure from Supplemental Essays

Two weeks ago, two very popular schools, UGA and Tulane, both decided to drop their supplemental essay prompts for next year. If you read last week’s post, you will probably have a pretty good idea of what implications this will have. Significantly more students will apply because it is easier to do so. This is going to bring application numbers up, which will in turn drive the admit rate down and make the schools look like they are all of a sudden even more selective. When UVA dropped its supplemental essay, applications surged by more than 20,000!

Another super huge change in Florida is that FSU decided to add a binding early decision round for this coming fall. Soon thereafter, UF decided to do the same thing. So many of my tutoring students want to stay in state. Binding decisions have never been anything they have thought about. This admissions cycle is already shifting quite a bit, and it’s only June!

On August 1 each year, the Common App opens up for the new year (even though students should have been working on most of it in June and July because it will all get copied over). Right around that same date, colleges will release their supplemental essay prompts. Quite a few schools changed them in light of the Supreme Court ruling where students’ race is not being reported to the colleges. In the ever-changing AI world, some schools are turning to brief video responses to try to glean a more authentic view of the applicant. It will be very interesting to see what other schools choose to do this year! Yale just brought back the test score requirement. Increasingly, data points such as this and AP/IB scores are becoming increasingly important.

Students need to be very aware that this recent drop of supplemental essays will certainly not make these schools easier to get into. It will most certainly make it more challenging due to increased competition for the same number of spots.