Send them a note? are they a lawsuit waiting to happen. I’m a volunteer for a top 10 university admissions team (I interview). They hammer it home to give NO feedbacks to a candidate no matter how much you might care to.
Chiming in to say that referencing the essay in the admissions letter does not necessarily mean that the essay was great, or that it moved the needle.
It’s a way for the AO to insert a personalized note.
Of course, it doesn’t mean the essay wasn’t great either! But I think some are giving too much weight to the AO note.
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Agreed. I suspect they just look up admitted kids’ essays and mention something from them to personalize the letter. Doesn’t mean they remembered it or it made a difference.
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The times that the essays were mentioned with acceptances for my kids seemed like yield tools, not meaningful, substantive feedback.
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Ssssh. Don’t tell them that.
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I don’t doubt some of the comments from AOs could be yield tools. A letter my son got from an LAC, one known for their creative writing program, referenced his writing and I did interpret that as more flattery than anything. But in the case of the university he is attending, the ONLY thing that would have set his application apart was his writing and 2 minute video statement. I was told by his AO about the committee meeting where she fought for him to be admitted and based on that story, it’s clear to me his essays were a big factor. Without them, his application would have looked like any other high achieving kid from a suburban public high school.
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D20 received detailed positive feedback on her essay from her ED acceptance. That school already knew she was a ‘sure thing’.
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That might be the case for interviewers communicating with prospective candidates for admission. Here, however, the reference is to admission officers sending a note about an essay to an admitted student. That’s very different.
I don’t have personal experience, but there are tons of posts on CC where this has happened.
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Correct. This was my D21’s experience with 5-6 LACs. I don’t recall personal notes from any of the unis.
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FWIW, both of my Ds (different schools) who applied ED had a personal note on their admission letters. Each referenced something about the kid and likely had nothing to do with yield because, as recruited athletes, they each applied ED1.
I thought I was the resident cynic. 
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Coaches routinely go to HS games AFTER their targets have committed to show some love. I have seen this happen many times.
I am willing to bet that next we will see AOs “liking” LinkedIn posts and social media content of admitted targets.
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OP here. When I wrote this post, I was feeling frustrated about a process that seems unnecessarily stressful.
Colleges with with 50,000 applicants and 2 required supplements will receive 150,000 essays (including common app essay, not including counselor reports and teacher LORs). Double that for schools like Northeastern with 100K apps.
How are these possibly read? How many folks work in admissions offices? Thirty tops? How many outside readers do they hire? Can’t be enough to get through all of this writing.
I’m not criticizing those charged with this daunting task. I’m sure they are overworked and unpaid. I’m just questioning the process of requiring more than one essay, and adding more stress to the process, particularly if they are not given a meaningful read.
Appreciate everyone’s interesting insights.
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UCLA hires more than 200 outside readers and that number was from a few years ago, so could be more now. UCLA commits that every app will be read by two different people. That is also common. Remember, on average the highly rejective schools are spending 10 mins max to read an app.
So back of envelope estimate: 150000 apps, 250 readers, 10 mins max per app (so the high end) = 100 hours reading apps for each reader (outside of committee). Then another read for the apps. Seems doable, and it’s over 5 months (Dec thru March).
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It brings up an interesting point - with 200 readers and no matter the training, there’s so much subjectivity - it’s hard to ensure consistency in the process.
One set of readers might think an essay is wonderful and another might feel it’s just ok.
One set might find grammar errors; another might feel the error was done purposely as part of the story.
That’s too many eyes - to me.
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My kid applied to a school that had something like 85000 applications that year with an admit rate of 16%. Her stats were in the range, but towards the lower end, and there was nothing outstanding about her ECs (decent, but there would have been many with more impressive ones). That leaves the essays and recommendations as a swing factor. Pretty sure the recs were good, but also while we can’t “know”, pretty sure the essays must have counted for something.
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I hear you on the consistency and subjectivity issues. All I think I know (because I haven’t been an AO) is that smart people working in admission/enrollment mgmt leadership roles say they thoroughly train staff, whether permanent full-time or temporary/part-time. UCLA says that many of the part-time readers are alumni who have worked the job for years. The various books that have been written about the process for example, Who Gets In and Why by Jeff Selingo, and the Gatekeepers by Steinberg, both address the subjectivity issue, at least at holistic schools. I totally agree that different AOs may react differently to an application, especially the essay(s).
In Rachel Toor’s book about her time in Duke admissions she mentions one of her fellow aOs who gave every single essay (great or horrible) a 3 (they rank essay and other parts of the app on 1-5 scale). Relatable!
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And I know someone who was a reader at a T20 and went on to become a college counselor. He admitted it’s very easy to miss the nuances and true depth in essays when you have only a few minutes to read through them, vs when you’re reading through the whole essay thoroughly without time pressure.
So yes, it’s very subjective.
Some schools try to buffer bias by having two readers for files that are on the cusp, which may be those where the essay could make a difference. My sense is that they try to “calibrate” but it’s true that people with have different reactions to things.
There is always a concern about having humans read files - and not just the essays. Maybe your file was assigned to someone cranky, maybe someone else on the committee just had an applicant he liked torpedoed by your reader so is particularly harsh on you, or maybe your reader just doesn’t feel they can fight for you effectively.
If a school wants essays and wants to consider them, you do your best on them. While not everyone ends up where they hoped to go, very few people end up in a situation from which they cannot create a lot of opportunity.
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Just to reiterate: the main goal for essays is “first do no harm.”
Occasionally an essay will be outstanding, but achieving neutral is good enough for many, depending on the rest of the application.
And colleges know that most are coached.
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