Responses

• Edward Smith
  

  November 11th, 2013

  Hi Carolyn, students get stressed regarding writing college admission essays. Your tips are going to help them a lot.

• Pedro Bale
  

  November 30th, 2013

  thanks it helped me write a good essay

• Stella Aldrin
  

  July 22nd, 2015

  Thanks for the informative tips on short
  essay writing.

• Tuneer Chakraborty
  

  January 20th, 2016

  Hello,
  I am applying to a liberal arts college and am sort of stuck up on the essay. Should I be completely honest and mention my shortcomings. I am pretty much introverted and not a good conversationalist. Should I or should I not mention these

• Jay Watson
  

  January 27th, 2016

  Your essay should help to give better, deeper insight into you as a person. As the post mentions, your essay should supplement the other parts of your application to help us understand you better. That said, you don’t have to include anything about yourself that you don’t feel comfortable sharing.

• Kevin
  

  April 25th, 2016

  Great tips!

• Phillip Harter
  

  September 3rd, 2016

  Is there a specific place to write the essay and is there a prompt, the common app doesn’t have a location to attach a personal essay.

• Jay Watson
  

  September 6th, 2016

  Thank you for your question. The Common Application gives students the option to choose one of five essay prompts. You can read the essay promts on the Common Application site at https://www.commonapp.org/whats-appening/application-updates/common-application-announces-2016-2017-essay-prompts

  Again, thanks for your question and your interest in Vanderbilt.

• Tihitina A. Bekele
  

  September 17th, 2016

  so Vanderbilt does not have additional or supplemental essays?

• Jay Watson
  

  September 20th, 2016

  Thank you for your question – you are correct, there are no supplements for Vanderbilt.

• Hannah Wildermuth
  

  September 21st, 2016

  Hi! I’m just adding the final touches to my application and I’m ready to send it off. I’m very excited! Just a clarification: when you say there aren’t any supplements for Vanderbilt, does it mean that the activity essay/expansion isn’t required or is that not classified as a supplement? Thank you!

• Jay Watson
  

  September 22nd, 2016

  Hi Hannah, thanks for your question (and congratulations on finishing up your application). This can vary depending on the specific application method you are using. I think you may be asking about the Common App, and in that case the short answer about activities is required to submit your application. We don’t consider that a supplement because it is a part of the Common Application. If you have more questions, please feel free to follow up.

• Hannah Wildermuth
  

  September 22nd, 2016

  Thank you for the clarification!

• Hannah Wildermuth
  

  September 23rd, 2016

  I made a mistake..3 actually! I submitted my application today and after looking back through my pieces of writing, I realized that I accidentally wrote a word twice in my personal statement and forgot a period, and I also failed to include a small word in my topic sentence for my activities essay on the common app. Apparently, I was far too excited to hit submit. I would hate to have my admission chances suffer because of this. I’ve emailed my admissions counselor, but in the meantime, is there anything that can be done? Thank you!

• Jay Watson
  

  September 30th, 2016

  Hi Hannah, thank you for checking in on this. Emailing your admissions counselor is absolutely the right course of action, and I am sure they will handle it from here. Don’t worry about it! And thanks for your enthusiasm about Vanderbilt!

• Clifford B. Golden
  

  April 13th, 2017

  Thanks for tips, right now i’m in the middle of essay writing, so your article is just what i needed. Start to get more and more worried each day, seems like now i know what to do