07/13/2026
Fewer college essays may make the application process easier. They may also make acceptance significantly harder.
The Wall Street Journal reports that several colleges are reducing or eliminating supplemental essays, citing student stress, limited usefulness, and concerns about AI-polished responses.
I understand the decision.
If a “Why Us?” essay produces hundreds of carefully engineered versions of the same answer, it may no longer provide admissions readers with meaningful information. But there is another consequence we need to discuss.
Removing supplemental essays lowers the barrier to applying.
Students who might once have removed a college from their list because of three additional essays may now submit the application. Colleges could receive even larger applicant pools without increasing the number of available seats.
The result may be lower acceptance rates and a more difficult admissions process for many students.
A student may be just as qualified as applicants in previous years and still face worse odds because the pool has grown larger, more competitive, and harder to differentiate.
Meanwhile, admissions offices still need ways to understand:
_how a student thinks
_what the student values
_what experiences have shaped the student
__what the transcript cannot explain
_why the student belongs in a particular academic community
When supplemental essays disappear, those questions do not disappear with them. More weight may fall on the personal statement, recommendations, interviews, activities, grades, and test scores.
This makes student ownership of the personal statement even MORE IMPORTANT.
The answer is not to make every seventeen-year-old sound flawlessly polished. It is to help students notice the stories already present in their lives, reflect deeply, and communicate in language that still belongs to them.
Good coaching should not manufacture a voice.
It should help the student hear it.
If your student needs thoughtful college essay support but the cost of private coaching feels out of reach, applications are now open for the Write Well Academy College Essay Scholarship.
The scholarship is designed to give a rising senior access to expert, human feedback while protecting the student’s ideas, language, and ownership of the essay.
Because every student deserves the chance to be heard, not rewritten.
Learn more and apply here: https://www.writewellacademy.com/college-essay-review-scholarship