Please help me pick my "Why X?" essays... 3.48/173 Forum

[dabbadon8]

UF undergrad, One bad semester sophomore year. Miami state attorney's office and small IP firm internships. Decent to strong LOR's. Played in a band that opened for national acts(classic rock like doobie bro's) idk if that would be a plus...(also reason for bad semester) Fraternity positions 3.48/173 (june 2010 only). Thanks to every one at TLS I know what schools I will be applying to. I want T-14 but probably would need at least some form of money, looking to keep debt around 100k or so if I can. Schools I am applying to are as follows

Penn
Michigan
Virginia
Duke
Northwestern
Cornell
Georgetown
UT
Vandy
Wash U St. L.
Emory
BU
BC
William & Mary
UNC
UF

My question is where should I focus my Why x? essays in order to maximize my money. I would like to do maybe 3 (idk) one for best shot at money in t-14, one for best shot decent money right out side t-14, and one for big money. I have been on LSN and was thinking Michigan or Cornell but I much rather go to Duke or UVA (but money from them seems unlikely). Where should I focus my sucking up?

[Bildungsroman]

Why not write a "Why X" essay for each of these?

[dabbadon8]

Why not write a "Why X" essay for each of these?

I think 16 of these would detract from the rest of my application. I rather have 3-6 high quality effective ones then 16 decent ones. Does anyone write one to every school they apply to?

[09042014]

Why not write a "Why X" essay for each of these?

I think 16 of these would detract from the rest of my application. I rather have 3-6 high quality effective ones then 16 decent ones. Does anyone write one to every school they apply to?

Some people do but you won't need to for the lower ranked schools. At a bare minimum, Virgina, Penn and Michigan, and I think Duke. None of those schools will think twice about WLing if they think you aren't serious.

[theanswer]

I think you should write one for any of your target schools, as long as you can keep it somewhat honest and do not have to resort to0 just copying and pasting buzz-phrases from their brochure

Michigan in particular seems to carefully vet its candidate based on whether or not the person really "wants" ann arbor, so I would lean toward writing one to them.