Isabella Sanchez ’16, Kendra Williams ’16: The Common Application for college admissions underwent changes last spring with new essay questions that raised concerns about its effects on the application process. Seniors now have to choose between five specific essay questions.
However, Matthew Essman, Head of the College Guidance department, clarified that “There haven’t been many complaints about the Common App. I think people were just getting a little nervous about the changes.” Pertaining to students, Essman explained, “The biggest change was in the series of essays questions. Prior to this change it had a ‘topic of your
choice’ option allowing students to write anything and know it could easily fit into this category, so the fact they were eliminating that was causing concern as to how narrow and specific the questions were going to be.”
Once the official questions were released, many were at ease as the prompts were broad enough for students to express themselves. For senior Michael Lee ’14, “there weren’t that many changes and it was still pretty easy.” Along with the change to the prompt, the word limit, though now extended to 650 words, is being more strictly enforced with the new Common Application.
When asked, Brianna Belo ‘14 said she preferred this as it “levels the playing field” and “gives the student an idea of how much
they should be writing.” However, Chris Whalen ‘14 thought the essay now “limits freedom for the student to talk about themselves” and as a result there is “not as much diversity in the essays.”
Aside from the changes that were made, the Common App website experienced a crash on October 12th with login issues and inability to view PDF previews. Concerning the seniors’ apprehension about the crash, Essman assured, “With already so much anxiety regarding the changes and the new versions, colleges are working very hard on their end to get any issues fixed as quickly as possible.” As for “anyone who had the deadline October 15th, colleges have extended deadlines a week and will proceed further if necessary.”
