Q: I understand the importance of the college essay, and how admissions people use it to get a sense of the whole applicant beyond the transcript and test scores.  But what's the point of all those short essays?  Write p 277 of your autobiography!  Write a haiku about yourself!  Why are you applying to us? These short essays are annoying and I don't see the purpose.  Don't they already have enough information in the application to make a decision?

A:  I am sure that every other student working to submit an application by the deadline has been similarly annoyed and wonders the same thing.  But don't kid yourself - these "short" questions are of the utmost importance!  Admissions officers have a tremendous amount of work to do; they are not making up extra questions just to give you and them more to do!  There is a reason.  For one thing, college admissions people know that the longer essay, which is usually considered to be "the" essay, may have been tweaked and edited and corrected by mom, dad, teachers, Uncle Fred, or even a paid advisor, and may no longer represent the genuine voice of the student.  And the genuine, natural voice is what they want to hear.  Dashing off - not being thoughtless, but being a bit more spontaneous - those short answers might reveal more of the unprompted writer.

Remember that an application should give a multi-dimensional picture of the applicant.  The short answers that you might think are trivial, actually add something to this portrait.

And if a college asks the question - "why are you applying to our college?" - please take this very seriously.  They are not looking for you simply to praise their school.  Neither are they looking for you to regurgitate information easily found on their website or publications.  So if you say "I want to attend X College because it's ranked #3 in the nation for . . ." or "I want to go to your school because it's only 20 minutes from Boston" or "X College is for me because it offers a choice of 38 majors" you will have failed the test.  Anyone can write those things.

They want to see that you have truly reflected on your choice.  In this way they may be able to tell the difference between a sincere applicant and one who wants to use them as a safety school or back-up.  If they have two applicants whose qualifications are very similar, but one applicant sounds sincere and the other sounds not fully interested, which applicant do you think they will choose?