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I stumbled upon a few questions that I'm posting all here as A I don't want to spam and B each question should have a fairly short answer.
How valued is name recognition of a school for employment prospects at a Fortune 500 HQ? Essentially how critical is name recognition for jobs? This isn't asking about prestige.
I know honors are considered to be valued in the same category as ECs. How much do honors matter? Does that answer if the honor is by default listed such as an award for a 4.0 semester? Or what about the AP awards?
For Common and Coalition, I have the option to submit my own essay. What are the pro and cons of that? Is there any way to mention the prompt? I applied to a prestigious scholarship organization that I was rejected by but for that, I wrote a common app style essay with a 650-word count, Therefore, I am wondering is it possible to reuse it after some minor editing to strip mentions of the scholarship organization?
If it matters the prompt is: We are interested in learning more about you and the context of how you formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How did these factors help you grow?
Is it a bad thing to use up all the space in additional info? Do I include financial information there even if it doesn't directly tie in to academics or ECs?
Even if you can answer one question Id vastly appreciate it. Links are appreciated! If at all possible can yall explain the rationale behind an answer instead of just the answer like is 54 an even number? Yes, it is an even because 4 is its digit and is divisible by 2.
Thank yall so incredibly much!
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1) It's going to matter a bit depending on your career field but I don't think it should be a defining reason why you decide to go to a school. As an example if you want to be a software engineer I think as long as you have a good portfolio and can prove you know what you're doing it's not going to matter a whole lot where you go. That doesn't mean some schools aren't better than others, just that you don't need to go to a top school if you want a job. Like @McKellarr said, what you do during your time in the school will matter more, networking, and being able to interview all are all things companies consider.
2) I'm getting confused by the wording on your second question. Can you clarify what you meant? Honors, especially something like 4.0 for a semester, don't matter a whole lot. They play a role, yes, but they probably won't be a deciding factor in your admissions. Why? Because most awards don't actually give the school new information about you. If you got a 4.0 for a semester the college will already know because of your transcripts, if you receive the AP Scholar award the school already knows your AP grades (assuming you submit them). If you have a Presidential Volunteer Service Award they're already going to know you volunteered and made an impact. Most of the time the awards are in addition to your accomplishments - they're the cherry on top.
3) I would say the pros of being able to submit your own essay are that you can write about anything you want so you can go for something pretty unique if you wanted. Just being able to write about exactly what you want can reduce a lot of stress. A con might be submitting an essay which could have been answered by, or is very similar to, another prompt. I think your prompt falls a bit in that second part - maybe you could re-write it to more directly answer another prompt? Check out this example essay: https://blog.collegevine.com/common-app-essay-examples/#prompt7. If I was an admissions officer I would expect something along the lines of that and less one with a prompt like yours.
4) I don't see anything wrong with using up all the space as long as the information is new to your application and not present elsewhere. What type of financial aid info would you be including? If it's something that would be on FAFSA or CSS I don't think it would make sense. Maybe this helps a bit: https://blog.collegevine.com/additional-information-about-commonapps-additional-information-section/
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