<p>Hey everybody! I was just wondering if I could get a quick opinion or two:</p>
<p>If an applicant falls below the middle 50% of average SAT scores at any one school, but still has above average (sections > 550) scores, can an EXCELLENT essay mean the difference between acceptance and rejection?</p>
<p>depends what colleges and depends on your other stats.</p>
<p>Essay can heal you but can not revive you. Get the point?</p>
<p>A great essay will benefit your app in countless ways. It could increase your chances of admissions by over 10%. It will not, like painholic stated, completely revive your app if everything else is lackluster.</p>
<p>Much more likely at schools that are not highly selective. At top schhols they expect, and get, it all.</p>
<p>I agree with above posters with the fact that top schools often get the whole package, but believig that getting into a mediocre school with a stellar essay alone is a common misconception. It's the mediocre schools that weight the SAT's and the GPA much more heavily, because these scores are often used as cutoffs(ex: SUNY schools). So I'd say that if you have extraordinary extracurricular, great recommendations, and a breath taking essay, then you most definitely have a shot at the top tier universities.</p>
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If an applicant falls below the middle 50% of average SAT scores at any one school
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<p>It's important to remember that half of the students at a school have below the middle 50%. It's not a minimum. A great essay (and good GPA) is one of the things that can help offset the scores. If they're significantly below 25%, though, that's a problem.</p>
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It's important to remember that half of the students at a school have below the middle 50%.
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<p>It's also important to remember that most of those are also "hooked" in some way. Recruited athlete, URM, socio-ec tag, development office admits, and so forth.</p>
<p>^40% of the class is hooked in fact.</p>
<p>Sure... but then again... everybody is under the delusion that they are the best writer in the English language since Shakespeare.</p>
<p>If the school is primarily interested in its USNWR rankings, a stellar essay isn't going to help all that much. In fact, if an admissions counselor might wonder why your SATs are not higher if you are capable of writing a top notch essay. There might be a very good answer for that in which case I would use the essay to explain the disparity.</p>
<p>Also, there are many schools were SAT scores are optional. If someone has fabulous grades, a great essay, and mediocre SAT scores and had the option to omit them, then do so.</p>
<p>It depends on what the content of the essay is and how the school makes decisions.</p>
<p>An extremely well written essay combined with a mediocre SAT CR/Writing score would probably cause the college to think that someone else wrote the essay.</p>
<p>A nonwhining essay that describes challenges that the applicant overcame could be a tip factor at colleges that holistically evaluate students, something that particularly top private colleges tend to do.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. I think an essay might help you if it provides highly positive information about you that isn't evident from the rest of your application. But if it's simply a very well-written essay, I'm not sure what it conveys except that you (or perhaps the person who helped you) is a good writer. I'm also skeptical of the idea that the essay can reveal your character, or how you think. It might, but it also might really reveal how your parents, or a teacher, or a paid consultant suggested that you portray yourself. In thinking about all these things, I try to put myself in the position of the admissions officer; how can they really evaluate something like an essay, when it's impossible to see how it was created? Heck, even if they look at the SAT essay, they only see how well you wrote under pressure on one particular day.
So my cynical view is that essays are not all that likely to help you but they might hurt you if they're bad. I think the same thing is true of recommendations and interview reports, by the way.</p>