How to write the Why Major essay without repeating yourself

AAristo advises most students to write their main college essay about what they hope to study, and that advice creates a puzzle when a supplement later asks why they want the major. The main essay seems to have answered already.

Repeating it wastes the space and tells the reader nothing new. Switching to an unrelated subject is worse, because it undercuts the case the rest of the file has been building and leaves a reader less sure of what the student wants. Students caught between those two mistakes often write the weakest piece in the whole application. The way out starts with a fact about academic fields that most applicants overlook.