A Question about Multiple Writing Samples

[absurd]

My first application is due in a few weeks. Eek! Crunch time.

Conundrum: my old computer crashed, and devoured most of my undergraduate work. I have two very strong papers which I would like to use as writing samples. One is ten pages long, and the other I am aiming to expand into fifteen.

Both papers are VERY strong, and directly related to the subject I intend on studying, although there is no way of combining them. I know alot of schools prefer one long essay to evaluate, but I simply don't have the time. Do you think sending two medium-length examples of my best work will hurt? Or should I push to expand the one into twenty pages (of possible shit?) Or would 15 pages be too few to send, considering many schools put the cap at 20-30? I want to be as competitive as possible.

Has anyone submitted two writing samples and lived to tell the tale?!

Edited October 28, 2009 by absurd

[glasses]

My first application is due in a few weeks. Eek! Crunch time.

Conundrum: my old computer crashed, and devoured most of my undergraduate work. I have two very strong papers which I would like to use as writing samples. One is ten pages long, and the other I am aiming to expand into fifteen.

Both papers are VERY strong, and directly related to the subject I intend on studying, although there is no way of combining them. I know alot of schools prefer one long essay to evaluate, but I simply don't have the time. Do you think sending two medium-length examples of my best work will hurt? Or should I push to expand the one into twenty pages (of possible shit?) Or would 15 pages be too few to send, considering many schools put the cap at 20-30? I want to be as competitive as possible.

Has anyone submitted two writing samples and lived to tell the tale?!

I know for a fact that folks have done the multiple-papers thing and had very successful application cycles! But, one thing: maybe you want to contact schools and double-check that they permit it? I know that some expressly forbid more than one writing sample (even if the total # of pages adds up to the # of pages required).

[Dirt]

My first application is due in a few weeks. Eek! Crunch time.

Conundrum: my old computer crashed, and devoured most of my undergraduate work. I have two very strong papers which I would like to use as writing samples. One is ten pages long, and the other I am aiming to expand into fifteen.

Both papers are VERY strong, and directly related to the subject I intend on studying, although there is no way of combining them. I know alot of schools prefer one long essay to evaluate, but I simply don't have the time. Do you think sending two medium-length examples of my best work will hurt? Or should I push to expand the one into twenty pages (of possible shit?) Or would 15 pages be too few to send, considering many schools put the cap at 20-30? I want to be as competitive as possible.

Has anyone submitted two writing samples and lived to tell the tale?!

You've mentioned a cap, but are you looking at schools that require a minimum page count? Fifteen pages is a substantial writing sample. I doubt that any program would ask for more that that.

I absolutely would not combine (and thus weaken) the two papers just to have a certain number of pages. A writing sample demonstrates your ability to do serious scholarly research and writing, not your ability to count pieces of paper.

[greekdaph]

I submitted two papers to most schools for my applications during the last round and was very happy with how I did in admissions. Each paper was about 10-12 pages long, and though they focused on different texts--one on poetry and non-fiction, the other on a novel--they were both in the same field, and both in the field I wanted to go into (not that that's the only way to approach a two-sample application; that's just what I did, and so it's what the experience I articulate here is premised upon). I wrote a paragraph in italics at the top of the writing sample that explained how each essay explores a facet of my interest in topic X, provided a sentence-long abstract of each paper, and glossed the differences in their subject matters and methodological approaches.

My worry with submitting two samples was that I wasn't showing that I could undertake a larger project. So to compensate for that, I made sure I articulated a larger project in my SOP. I began my SOP by talking about my senior thesis (which was not the source of my samples), then I talked about how I wanted to expand those ideas to encompass a wider range of texts, then I talked a little bit about what doing so would look like (here's where the writing sample comes in: the sample expanded upon clauses in those sentences), then I talked about the implications of the larger project, about what big questions I hoped it would think about. The larger project is, of course, mythical, but I think it's useful, either in your writing sample or your SOP or--ideally--both, to show how you can think in a bigger way than most undergrad courses ask you to.

When visiting programs and talking to the few people who brought up my writing sample, the range in the two pieces helped: though most of the time, the paper they directly referred to was the first (and more successful) one, professors would sometimes bring up the author I focused on in my second paper and say, "Oh, you should talk to my colleague, [awesome person]; he's also interested in [topic of second paper]." I also heard a couple profs (though not anyone who was on an admissions committee) speculate that the shorter length of the sample must have been appreciated; both papers combined were about 23 pages, but someone could get a pretty good idea of what I'm all about just by reading one paper.

In the end, I was really glad that I used my best, most recent work rather than applying with a longer sample I felt less confident in.