Question: Is it okay to recycle application essays for other college applications I’m sending in?

If you’re submitting more than one college application (which you should be), it often doesn’t make sense to recreate the major essays. My professional opinion is that college seniors should be applying to a bare minimum of three colleges and/or universities. Ideally, that number should be more like four or five. So, then, if most of your applications require an essay (a “personal statement”), you need to be economical.

On most college applications that require an essay, the essay question usually asks the applicant to tell something unique about themselves that hasn’t been revealed elsewhere in the application. My personal preference is to tell a story about something that actually happened– an anecdote