“Feature creep” is continually adding new features to a product in the hopes of improving it and appealing to more customers, but ultimately resulting in something complicated and difficult to use, often impairing its ability to do what it was originally designed to do. That software program that forced you to upgrade, where the new version has bells and whistles that you didn’t want, didn’t need, and just don’t like? That’s feature creep, and it’s ruined a lot of previously good products.
Some applicants—and just as often, their parents—fall prey to application creep, especially in November as deadlines are inching closer. Why not add a few more colleges to this list, just to be safe? Why not send this extra letter of recommendation the college didn’t ask for, just in case it helps? Why not have just one more person give us feedback on the essay, if their suggestions could make a difference? A little more, a few more tweaks, one or two more suggestions implemented—eventually, you stop improving your application. And you start impairing its ability to do what it was designed to do.
Your application, with its accompanying parts like essays and letters of rec, is a product. It deserves enough time and attention to make it as strong as possible. But like feature creep, all those additions done in the hopes of making your product better eventually start to chip away at something that was previously good.
Those additional college applications mean more work for the student, the rec writers and the counselor (all of which chips away at the quality of your other applications). That extra letter of recommendation just chips away at the admissions officer’s patience and attention span. That one additional source of essay feedback just chips away at whatever is left of the student’s voice in the essay, leaving something that reads as if it was written by a committee (because now it has been!).
The best products do what they’re designed to do for the people they’re designed to do it for. They don’t try to please every potential customer, and they don’t implement every suggestion. Your college application is designed to help each particular college evaluate you as an applicant. The admissions office has spent months refining this particular product to do what it is designed to do, for exactly who it was designed to do it for. Help that product do its job.
Follow the directions. Use the space and the prompts to clearly and proudly tell the college who you are and what you’ve done. Take the time to do your best work on the applications for those colleges that really interest you. Don’t fire off last minute additional applications to schools you know nothing about. Don’t send unsolicited materials. Don’t get third and fourth and sixth opinions on your essays. Instead, focus your time and attention on helping each product do the job it was designed to do.
Are there exceptions to this rule? Yes, but your counselor is the best judge of those exceptions, not your friend, neighbor, or anyone else who doesn’t work in the college admissions field.
Don’t assume that more applications, more input, or more features will make your application better. These products work very well already, especially when you take the time to use them properly.