This is reportedly intended to gauge the tolerance of college applicants.
The college application deadlines hit in January, and this report looks at a college admissions skill that the Wall Street Journal describes as "must-have:" tolerating the viewpoints of others.
The Journal says that elite institutions have begun adding these "disagreement essays" in admissions over the past "couple of years", asking applicants to recount a dispute with someone who has different beliefs than their own.
New York University reportedly says it is looking for "bridge builders.”
Christopher Rim is a college admissions consultant, as well as CEO of Command Education, a college consulting firm for prospective students.
He appeared on Fox News where he described this as "such an important part and change of the entire application process."
"So, the point of this question is to really judge students' emotional maturity, self-reflection, and whether or not a student can engage with opposing viewpoints without shutting them down or attacking their classmates, or adversaries here."
Rim said the essays measure how students think, not really what they're thinking.
“And just to be clear, this did not replace the main common application personal statement.”
These are additional questions that specific schools are asking.
"A lot of people will think that it's political. I really don't think so. Campuses are more polarized than ever before, and colleges want students who can sit in classrooms with people who can think differently. When you think of Harvard, for example, they have a lot of students from all over, not even all over the country, but all over the world."
So, he said you need to be able to engage in conversations with people with different backgrounds and cultures to be able to coexist.
"Colleges are communities built on debate and the exchange of ideas. Productive disagreement is essential to academic life, and in a way, that's why you're at these elite schools, to have these types of conversations."
