Is it okay to reuse supplemental essays for multiple colleges?

You’re not alone—many applicants feel overwhelmed by the number of supplemental essays, especially when applying to lots of schools. Reusing or adapting essays for similar prompts is actually quite common and, when done thoughtfully, completely acceptable.

The key is to make sure that you customize each essay enough so it feels specific for the school. For instance, the ‘Why this College?’ prompt requires clear, tailored details demonstrating genuine interest in that particular school—professors' names, unique programs, or specific values that connect to your goals. Reusing a generic version for every school can come off as insincere and admissions officers can usually tell when an essay is copy–pasted or overly broad.

For more general prompts, like describing an extracurricular or a personal value, it makes sense to have a strong “base” essay and then tweak it as needed. For example, if one school asks about an activity that’s meaningful to you and another wants you to describe a community you’re part of, you might start with the same story but change the focus to fit each prompt's needs. Maybe you describe your robotics club in both, but for the community question, you emphasize relationships and teamwork, whereas the extracurricular question focuses more on skills developed and milestones achieved.

Personally, I found it helped to create a spreadsheet tracking which schools had similar prompts and then developed a few core essays. From there, I carefully added details relevant to each college, making sure to address anything specific they asked for.

The most important thing is not to cut corners on customization for college–specific supplements because that’s your chance to show why you’re a strong fit for their unique environment. For more general questions, though, reusing and adapting content as a foundation is perfectly reasonable and can save you a lot of time and stress.

In short: Yes, reuse essays when it makes sense, but always personalize the details for each school, especially on anything directly related to the college itself. Done thoughtfully, this can keep your workload manageable without hurting your application quality.