College Application Essays Don’t Matter as Much as You Think

Applying to College
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<p>Interesting opinion from Stanford sociologist Mitchell Stevens.</p>

<p>Parents: sit down before you read this. Kids: deep breaths. You know that beautifully crafted, deeply felt, highly unusual college application essay you’ve been polishing? It might not make a difference for your college admission chances.</p>

<p>Stanford sociologist Mitchell Stevens spent 18 months embedded with admissions officers at an unnamed top-tier liberal arts college and found that, even in cases where students were within the admissible range in terms of scores and grades, officers rarely looked to the personal essays as a deciding factor.</p>

<p><a href="http://time.com/3585539/college-application-essays-dont-matter-as-much-as-you-think/"&gt;http://time.com/3585539/college-application-essays-dont-matter-as-much-as-you-think/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>This seems like anecdotal evidence based on the summary. I see little reason to generalize based on any one opinion and experience, so I’ll do myself a favor and not read it. Thanks for posting though!</p>