Supplemental college essays are university-specific, meaning that they are something you will write in addition to the Common Application Personal Statement, but they will only be sent to the specific institution that is asking the prompt. As such, these essays pack a lot of power: these are the college and universities’ best chance to really judge whether or not you’ll be a good fit for their specific campus community. These essay prompts can vary quite a bit between the various schools you are applying to, but the mistakes we see are pretty much universal. In this article, we’ll take a look at 5 Common Mistakes Made on Supplemental Essays.
As you start to think about tackling your supplemental essays, here’s what not to do.
1. Underestimating the Importance of Supplemental Essays
If you stop and think about it, the supplemental essays for a college, are really the only place on your application where you can – quite literally – express your passion and excitement for wanting to attend their institution. As a result, it pays to have done your homework on what exactly it is that most excites you for your potential future there.
When colleges and universities are reviewing your supplemental essays, they are looking for fit – will this student best utilize the education and resources of our institution, and are we the right school for them? It is your job to show them these answers through your detail-rich responses. If you do this correctly, you will leave no question that this school is the right fit for you.
2. Utilizing a “Cut & Paste” Approach
A common mistake is to use a “cut and paste” approach, trying to recycle essays used from another school’s supplemental essay, and repurposing it to the new, and often times, very different prompt, on another application. While there are ways to recycle themes from essays, if you are copying and pasting your responses from one application’s essays and putting them in another application’s essays, I can guarantee you that you are lacking the specificity that a supplemental essay requires.
I ask each of my students the same simple question: Could this essay be said about any other college you are applying to? If the answer is yes, then the essay is not specific enough. If you are able to copy and paste your essay and put it into a response for an entirely different application, your essay is not specific enough to be competitive in an applicant pool.
3. Shallow Answers
Providing a shallow answer such as “my friends go there and they’ve told me great stories about how much fun they’re having,” or “I want to make a lot of money and graduates from your college tend to earn higher salaries,” is a way to quickly lose the interest of your reader. With how low acceptance rates are these days, if your supplemental essays are lacking depth – your reader will move on, simply put.
4. Repeating Selling Points
Repeating the college’s selling points in their “Why Our College?” essay with no specific reason as to why you wish to attend. For example, “I want to go to ABC College because it has a great program in environmental science.”
A better answer would be:
“I read about interesting research being conducted by Professor Williams in your Environmental Sciences department on the effect of climate change on urban areas and the impact on their economies. I would love to participate in similar research and believe ABC College is at the forefront in this area of study.”
Or
“While visiting the campus I sat in on a class on how climate change is affecting the polar ice caps. The professor was engaging and the class responded with a lot of questions and lively discussion. This is the kind of environment I want to study in.”
In either of these examples, adding how you would contribute to the campus is key. “I’d love to apply what I’ve learned from my independent study on climate change to educating my peers on how we can lower our carbon footprint on campus.”
5. Proper Grammar, Spelling, And Vocabulary
As with all essays, appropriate grammar, spelling, and vocabulary are important. Using slang, “emojis”, uncommon terminologies, or abbreviations detract from the content and hurt your essay.
Need Assistance with your Supplemental Essays?
Ready to embark on your journey toward successful college applications? Our experienced consultants at Solomon Admissions Consulting, are here to help. Contact us today!
Originally posted in November 2020, Edited and Updated by one of our Admissions Consultants, and republished in November 2024.
Former Admissions Reader at Rice University,
3500+ Applications Read and Evaluated
As college admissions professional for the last 16 years, Adrienne has experience working on all sides of the proverbial admissions desk. She has read thousands of applications in her role as an admissions reader for highly selective Rice University, she has aided in the development of admissions and financial aid strategies for colleges and universities worldwide as a higher education enrollment consultant, and she has served as the Director of College Counseling in an elite K-12 school - a role that she was recognized for in 2015 when she was selected as The University of Chicago's Outstanding Educator of the Year.
