For the second year in a row, undergraduate applicants will be asked to write one supplemental essay to accompany their Common Application.
Last year’s supplement posed only one additional question about a meaningful out-of-classroom activity, but this year’s supplement will have five options for responses. One prompt asks candidates to explain the story and meaning behind their name, and another asks about the influence a hero has had on the applicant’s life.
Dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris said her office made the addition of a required essay last year because of the Common Application’s elimination of the short activity essay, which asked students to briefly elaborate on an extracurricular or work experience. When formulating this year’s application, Laskaris said admissions officers could not decide on just one topic and allowed for a choice
“We brainstormed a variety of different questions that might get at some of those intangible qualities we are seeking,” she said.
Prior to last year, a peer evaluation and alumni interview were the only materials that supplemented Dartmouth’s Common Application.
“We weren’t hearing enough in the students’ own voices,” Laskaris said.
Michele Hernandez ’89, a former Dartmouth admissions officer and president of Hernandez College Consulting, said she applauds Dartmouth for adding an extra essay.
Many students she consults, she said, now feel that the Common Application does not give them enough room to speak to all their accomplishments and interests.
“I don’t think it’s too onerous to have one extra paragraph,” Hernandez said. “At least it gives kids a vehicle to get extra information across.”
In the mid-1990s, when she was an admissions officer at the College, Dartmouth used its own application, which was more open-ended, Hernandez said.
The Common Application will go online on Aug. 1. Laskaris said the admissions office will be send out a newsletter later this month to encourage potential applicants to start thinking about the supplemental essays.
All other Ivy League schools except for Harvard University have integrated an additional writing requirement of some sort into their Common Application supplement. Harvard offers applicants the option of writing an additional essay.
Princeton University and Yale University have several required writing prompts in their supplement, such as asking how students spent their summers and what applicants would like to elaborate on regarding their application.
For his supplemental essay during application season last year, Matt Vance ’18 wrote about volunteering at a veterans’ hospital in New Haven, Connecticut before his junior year of high school.
“I really do think that the heart of who I am came out in my Common App essay, but it was nice to elaborate and explain why I [volunteered] and how it changed how I perceive different things in my life,” Vance said.
Carolyn Susman ’18 wrote about volunteering at the London Olympics in 2012, an experience she said helped shape her ideas about nationalism and patriotism.
The only school to which she applied that did not have an essay supplement was Washington University in St. Louis, she said.
“Many, but not all, of my friends that ended up applying there just did it last-second because it was easy,” Susman said.
This phenomenon is attractive to prospective students whizzing through college applications, but not ideal, Susman said, because the colleges without writing supplements end up attracting applicants for the wrong reasons.
“You want ones who want to go there and would enjoy going there rather than just ending up there,” she said.
Even before the shift, Dartmouth’s application allowed applicants to upload a resume or submit a supplemental art portfolio or research abstract. None of these measures has been required.
This year, the College experienced a 14 percent drop in applications relative to last year.
Still, the yield for the Class of 2018 was the highest in history, with 54.5 percent of accepted students deciding to enroll at the College.
Annie Smith contributed reporting.
The article has been revised to indicate the following correction:
Correction appended (7/11/14):
The initial version of this online article was accompanied by a photo of a Thursday reading instead of Nushy Golriz's photo of the admissions office. The story has been revised.
