Following up on last week’s newsletter: If you’re a rising senior and using the Common App this fall, I wanted to say a few words about what I call “hidden essays.”
There are several kinds of essays in the Common App:
The Common App Personal Essay: That one goes to all the colleges you apply to on the Common App.
You should submit this one even if a particular college doesn’t require it.
You can also swap out the topics (you can choose from among 7) if you want to use different topics for different colleges.
2. The Supplemental Essays: The colleges can have their own, college-specific essay prompts, and those show up in their “supplements” on the Common App. Most essay prompts in the supplements will need to be written by everyone applying to that college.
For example, last year USC had two longer essays and a bunch of short answer questions that everyone had to submit if they were applying to USC, in addition to the Common App Personal Essay.
3. The Hidden Essays: Other essay prompts on a college supplement might show up only for some applicants, for example only those who select a certain major in the Academic Interests section that appears elsewhere in that college supplement.
It’s that third category I want to talk about today.
For example, last cycle the USC supplement had two hidden essays that popped up — and that you could only see — if you had selected an engineering major in the Academic Interests section of the USC supplement.
Both hidden essays were 250 words on topics that required time, thoughtfulness, and effort to do well. Here’s what those looked like:
The reason those hidden essays trip a lot of people up is because those prompts are NOT included on the Common App’s index of college-specific essay prompts, aka Writing Requirements.
The USC entry, for example, included the two essays that every USC applicant had to write, but said only this about the possibility of hidden essays:
Additional questions may be triggered by answers you provide in your application.
Not a peep about what those triggers are, or what the triggered essay questions are.
So make sure to budget plenty of time for your essay writing — more than you think you’ll need.
If you rely only on those published essay prompts to figure out how much time you’ll need or how many essays you’ll need to write, you won’t have budgeted time for the hidden essays that may or may not pop up based on the answers you provide elsewhere in any given college supplement.
It’s a less than perfect system, I know.
Here are some examples of other hidden essay types that can be triggered by certain answers in the application (and note that not all colleges will require them):
Gap year essays
Scholarship essays
Honors college essays
Criminal disclosure essays
Disciplinary disclosure essays
Interruption of studies essays
Military dishonorable-discharge essays
📰 News You Can Use
1 - Design your own virtual college tour: If you’re still putting your college list together and you can’t visit a particular college in person, make sure to create your own virtual college tour. Here’s our step-by-step guide.
2 - Cal Tech remains test-blind through Fall 2025:* It made that decision based on an internal study finding that “standardized test scores have little to no power in predicting students' performance in the first-term mathematics and physics classes that first-year students must take as part of Caltech's core curriculum. Further, the predictive power of standardized test scores appears to dissipate as students progress through the first-year core curriculum.” Instead, “numerous other key attributes of applications serve as stronger indicators of the potential for student success here," says Jared R. Leadbetter, professor of environmental microbiology and chair of the first-year admissions committee. (Caltech admissions announcements)
***** Test-blind means they won’t look at your SAT/ACT scores even if you have them. And they’re really serious about that. “Caltech will never consider your SAT or ACT examination scores in our admissions evaluation process. We mean it. Don't send them as the Admissions Committee will never see them. If your test scores appear on the Coalition, Common, or QuestBridge applications, they will be automatically suppressed when sent to Caltech.” [bolding in the original!]
3 - New England Board of Education is working to expand guaranteed transfer pathways in the region. Overdue — because non-traditional students are the new normal — but better late than never. (Inside Higher Ed)