Organizing essays with folders

Once you're juggling a personal statement, a stack of supplementals, and a scholarship essay or two, your dashboard can get crowded. Folders let you group essays however you think about your applications. You'll find them under Folders in the Application section of your sidebar.

Create a folder

1. Open the Folders page and start a new folder.
2. Give it a name.
3. Select the essays you want inside — you can multi-select existing essays right in the create dialog.
4. Save, and the folder appears with its name, essay count, and when you last opened it.

An essay can live in a folder without leaving your main Essays list, so you never lose track of anything. You can also add more essays to an existing folder later — new supplementals slot in as you create them.

Views and sorting

The Folders page has a grid/list toggle, so you can browse folders as visual cards or scan them as a compact list — whichever suits how many you have. You can also sort your folders by:

• Name — alphabetical order.
• Created — newest or oldest first.
• Updated — most recently touched at the top.
• Essay count — biggest folders first.

Reorder essays inside a folder

Open a folder and drag and drop essays to reorder them. This is handy for putting drafts in priority order — the essay due next at the top, or your strongest draft first when an advisor is looking over your shoulder. The order you set is saved, so the folder looks the same the next time you open it.

Rename or delete a folder

You can rename a folder anytime if your organizing scheme changes, or delete it when a batch of applications is submitted. Deleting a folder doesn't delete the essays inside it — they stay safe in your Essays list.

Ideas for organizing

There's no single right way, but these schemes work well:

• By school — one folder per college, holding every supplemental for that school. Easiest to check "is this application done?" at a glance.
• By application round — folders like "Early Decision," "Early Action," and "Regular Decision" so the nearest deadlines are always front and center.
• By draft stage — "Brainstorming," "In progress," and "Final" folders that essays move through as they mature.

Tip: combine schemes as your cycle progresses — start with draft-stage folders in the summer, then switch to per-school folders once deadlines get close. Since renaming and deleting are painless, reorganizing takes seconds.

If you haven't written your first essay yet, start with Writing your first essay and come back once you have a few drafts to wrangle.