Some Colleges Drop Supplemental Essays for 2026–27

Several selective universities have announced they will remove supplemental essays from their application materials for the 2026–27 admissions cycle, causing a stir in the admissions world.

Some of those institutions said they made the change because the supplemental essays played a relatively small role in their admissions decisions—especially compared to the longer personal statement.

Among the institutions that have dropped an essay requirement this year are Tulane University, which is pausing its “Why Tulane?” essay, and Washington University in St. Louis, which removed an optional essay, the topic of which varied from year to year. The University of Georgia also removed a supplemental essay, which, for the past few years, had asked students to discuss a book they read and enjoyed. And Cornell University removed its universitywide essay but will still require applicants to write an essay for the specific school or college they wish to attend.

“How [the universitywide essay] was positioned and structured wasn’t necessarily helping us to see a fuller picture of the student than just our college essays,” said Pamela Tan, the director of undergraduate admissions at Cornell.

It’s too early to determine whether eliminating supplemental essays marks a broader trend, as colleges traditionally announce alterations to their application materials throughout the month of July. But Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said he was heartened to see the institutions make the changes. An ad hoc NACAC committee on student mental health during the transition to college recently recommended that institutions simplify their admissions processes in order to lessen the stress of application season.

Supplemental essays can be a major contributor to that stress, Pérez said.

“One of the things that colleges and universities have been responding to is the extraordinary complexity of the college admissions process,” he said. “A lot of institutions are really starting to ask themselves, ‘What do we really need?’”

Grace James, assistant vice provost for undergraduate admissions at WashU, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that application process stress was the main reason her institution decided to do away with its optional essay.

“We found over time that the optional essay did not feel optional to students and often covered information shared in other parts of the application,” she wrote. “We received feedback from school counselors that the optional essay was a source of stress and we wanted to decrease stress in the process as well.”

Increased Applications?

Other institutions have already eliminated supplemental essays. Last year, the University of Virginia removed its supplemental essay, which correlated with an increased number of applications. In a recent survey by the Independent Educational Consultants Association, an association of independent college counselors, IECs largely said they anticipate the removal of such essays will lead to “inflating application volumes and admit-rate pressure,” IECA President Stephanie Simpson told Inside Higher Ed via email.

But some colleges have denied they were seeking a surge in applications.

In a comment on a blog post about the decision to remove Georgia’s supplemental essay, David Graves, the university’s director of undergraduate admissions, wrote, “We are aware of UVA’s app growth … but UVA is also test optional as opposed to UGA being test required, so we do not expect as much of a jump. I also feel that if one 250-300 word essay is the difference between applying or not, then a number of additional applications might not be as strong.”

On the other hand, an email to counselors from Shawn L. Abbott, Tulane’s dean of admissions, noted that one reason the university got rid of its “Why Tulane?” essay was because the admissions team worried it might discourage some strong students from applying.

Anita Doddi, a counselor with Collegewise, said she wasn’t surprised by Tulane’s move.

“I think that in general, the ‘why us’ question—why do you want to apply to this college—has been a difficult one for students,” she said. “There’s enough online information about how to answer this question, so I think it’s becoming less and less useful.”

But she also said she wished institutions would brainstorm more effective questions rather than drop supplemental essays altogether.

“What we know is that so many students have high grades—they look like they have a lot of rigor in their class curriculum. They have pretty high test scores. These students often apply to a lot of schools,” she said. “I think it’s important for students to show something about their personality. The personal statement is great, [but] for a lot of students it’s intimidating.” She said she is now encouraging students to try to complete an interview or a video essay, where possible, for institutions without a supplemental essay.

Ethan Sawyer, the founder of the College Essay Guy, an application essay coaching firm, doesn’t think colleges are decreasing the amount of writing in their applications on a broad scale. He also doubts that video essays will replace traditional essays.

“I think a piece of writing can convey certain qualities that, for many students, a video just can’t. And admissions officers I’ve spoken with [agree],” he wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

In his email to counselors, Abbott also said that Tulane is axing its supplemental essay in part due to the increase in students using generative artificial intelligence to write their applications. None of the other colleges that have announced they’re dropping essays referenced AI, and the WashU admissions team specifically told Inside Higher Ed AI use was not a consideration in its decision.

UGA also noted that the change was partially driven by the burden that reading a whole second set of essays places on the admissions team.

“We have grown a great deal in applications, and we want to give a detailed and focused review of these files,” Graves wrote in another comment on UGA’s blog post. “In my years in admissions, I have read a [lot] of essays, and my team is exhausted at the end of every read season. When we analyzed the information from the second essay, and what we were able to get from the first essay and then what value was added by the second one, we felt that going with just one was the best for our reviews and our team.”