[Bartweiss]

This is actively the point of college admission essays, though. Especially for post-high-school applications, each student only has enough time to write and edit so many essays, so requiring college-specific essays keeps applications-per-student lower. That raises enrollment rates per acceptance, which helps colleges manage the size of their income class.

The Common App didn't save time for most students, it let them do more applications via the same number of essays. So yeah - those essays exist as a transaction cost to weed out the uncommitted.