Fall 2012 Applications

thank you
I aim to apply to more than 5 schools in one round so I want to start as early as possible

Wow. Good luck with that.

Something that helped me when thinking through the essays was making a matrix and grouping similar questions together to figure out which essays I could realistically reuse/repurpose for schools.

did you apply to 9 schools in one round or in two?
last year I applied to 7 in one round=) and it did not go well as you might guess

I did it over 2 rounds.

Holy cow, that's a lot of schools! I did 5 schools for round 1 and even with an early start, it was pretty taxing. Since you really want to get to know all the programs in depth, the research is what took a lot of time. I reached out to alumni and students at each program and I can't imagine keeping my stories straight had I applied to even more schools!

when did you start your applications / research for those schools. ??
I am a reapplication so I have some background on the schools and some essay drafts and if I start drafting new essays now or even early July or smthng I will be able to do 5-6 schools in one round.

Hilarious. I was a reapplicant this year. I reused some of my essays from last year with some major tweaks and minor edits plus a couple new ones. My career goals got way more specific and I had a lot of new experiences to write about though, so I scrapped some of my old essays.

I'd recommend starting research now. Early July is about the right time-frame to start drafting. Look at the essays which have stayed constant over the past few years and start drafting on those first. Also, start thinking of stories that can be spun in multiple ways to answer different questions. Writing the major ideas of those stories down and having some sort of logical flow will help you when you're faced with zillions of essays to write.

Good luck - it's tough but I think it's doable!