For the 2009-2010 academic year, UVA received 21,839 applications for undergraduate enrollment—a 17 percent increase from the previous year, accompanied by a 6 percent drop in the acceptance rate. Factor in this year’s $51.1 million reduction in state funding, and stakes may feel a bit higher for wannabe Wahoos.
So last week, days before the January 1 submission deadline, I sat down with UVA’s Common Application Supplement—the five-page document that asks would-be students to sign their first Honor Code agreement and write 250-word essays about their favorite word and pieces of art that challenged them. For the record, my 2001 responses were “Hope” (prescient!) and a Bad Religion song. I got in.
But, man, I wish I’d searched outside of the College of Arts & Sciences questions. The first questions for applicants to the architecture and nursing schools amount to, “Really? Us?” (“What led you to apply to the School of Architecture?”)
Then there are the tantalizing creative prompts restricted to Transfer Applicants Only. There’s the classic “Dinner with a trio of people, living or dead” question. Another includes the hypothetical, “If life does, in fact, exist elsewhere in the universe…” And does that Guaranteed Admission Agreement between UVA and Virginia community colleges make the content of any essays moot? I need more room and more time, UVA! I am large! I contain multitudes! I wonder if other applicants are having the same creative crises…
If so, I hope their experiences calling the Office of Undergraduate Admission are as reassuring as my own was. After one terrifying minute of busy lines (“All agents are currently busy. Please remain on the line and somebody will be with you shortly”), I spoke with Assistant Dean of Admissions Jeannine LaLonde, who answers applicant questions at uvaapplication.blog spot.com.
“Most of the questions at this point result from students worrying about little details that they think will hurt them,” says LaLonde. “They worry about how things come together once they get here.”
And while the small selection of questions may seem limiting, it sounds as if students are better off mining their own experiences for novel answers than griping about a lack of novel questions.
“Every year, there are trends in the books or music,” says LaLonde, who keeps a running list of the musicians cited. She also offers up a quick list of popular books mentioned in the Arts & Sciences essays: George Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451. For a while, The Da Vinci Code and The Kite Runner were also trendy picks. “It’s always in line with the books that are being assigned at the schools.”
Be bold, applicants of today and students of tomorrow! Dare beyond the parameters of your essay prompts! Or, use the word “parameters” when you write about Winston and Big Brother. That word should score you some points.
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