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| Virginia Tech will not be changing essays for 2019-20. |
This is
an awkward time of year for college admissions. Most colleges have put their
fall 2019 classes to bed and are slowly turning attention to the next
round of applicants.
To get
ready for the coming year, admissions offices have a few administrative chores
to take care of. Based on the experience of the preceding year, they typically consider
new policies and procedures, revise writing and other requirements, edit
websites as necessary and communicate all changes to the various application
platforms.
Some do
a good job addressing these tasks, particularly when it comes to revising
websites. But some colleges are less-than-clear on their websites as to which
year(s) or which requirement(s) are in play. On occasion, this is deliberate,
as they really don’t have any intention of changing anything and it’s just
easier not to bother labeling requirements by year. But other times, they
either haven’t gotten around to changing the website or they haven’t quite made
the relevant decisions—yet.
Regardless
of reason, the absence of a label can be just plain confusing, particularly for
those students who really want or need to get their applications going before summer
turns to fall.
And frankly, given the pressure to apply early and the drift of deadlines more toward October, it makes little sense for colleges to wait until August 1 to spring new application requirements on applicants.
Many colleges are sensitive to the fact that students in parts of the country start high school early in August, while other students have various sports and marching camps taking up enormous amounts of time in August and the weeks before school gets underway. These colleges start posting requirements as early as the beginning of June.
And while all three major application platforms—the Common Application, the Coalition Application and the Universal College Application (UCA)—are set up for students to begin completing the personal information sections of their applications and all three have announced prompts for the personal statement, some colleges are painfully slow to release their supplements. Again, this may be on purpose. But it can also stem from a little administrative disorganization.
Luckily,
a significant number of colleges have begun releasing requirements for 2019-20.
And after a careful review of websites and a few calls to admissions offices,
here is what is known so far about writing requirements (member questions,
essay supplements) for the coming year:
Common
Application/Coalition Application/Universal College Application
Harvard University
(scroll down or open the UCA)
James Madison University (open
the Coalition Application)
Pomona
College (for applicants using the Common App only)
University
of Tampa (or open the Coalition Application)
Other Applications
Georgetown
University (open an application)
Wake
Forest University (note that this is the institutional version; prompts may
vary slightly on other versions)
Confirmed Verbally with
Admissions
College
of William and Mary
(this is an older blog—scroll down to the prompt)
Lafayette College
Lafayette College
Many
of these links were previously posted on the College Explorations Facebook
page. As colleges continue to release writing supplements for 2019-20, new
links will be added. And note, everything is subject to change (one very
high-selective university has already made a significant change in its writing
supplement since its original website posting). Please check with individual
websites for the most recent and possibly accurate information.
7/27/19 Updated
7/27/19 Updated
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