<p>Alright, guys.</p>
<p>To what extent, or to what degree, can a really good college essay sway the admissions counselor's decision? They say it can but I have my doubts... thoughts??</p>
<p>Always good to ask each individual school these types of things. Everyone has a different process and reasoning behind those processes. </p>
<p>For example Duke splits your acceptance into 6 parts; one of which is your essay, another your SAT scores, etc.</p>
<p>Remember though that a really good essay will lead to conversation about you as an individual and future member of the school. In my opinion your essay is one of the more important things, because it’s more than just statistics.</p>
<p>Tip: Your goal should be to get your reader into your story or topic. You don’t want them lazily reading. You want their attention and you want it now. Asking rhetorical questions is a great way to do this.</p>
<p>It depends. For some ultra selective schools, there’re plentiful high GPA, high test scoring applicants. To justify whom to select, admissions officers are looking for something that stands out. Given what is submitted, essays are one of the few areas where a student can market themselves as individuals and potential members of that college.</p>
<p>Imagine sifting through the roughly 30K applications at Yale and harvard. You telling us that you don’t think essays don’t distinguish applicants?</p>
<p>Essays are certainly important but won’t make up for low stats or so-so ECs. They will be the most valuable at liberal arts colleges where adcoms are very focused on personal qualities and where the volume of applicants isn’t quite so high.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, your insight has been very helpful. </p>
<p>I’d agree with the fact that it won’t save you, but if you’re up against people with the same academic stats, it could probably sway their decision based on your essay. However, I’m not applying to harvard or yale so i’m not sure if that issue exists for me… I guess we’ll see…</p>
<p>How about this: I have a unweighted GPA of 3.8 and weighted 3.91, 28 on the ACT, good EC’s (large amount of quality community service, small clubs, sports, leadership positions), and my essay is creative (it helped that I want to study a creative major in college - film - so my essay is written like someone filming a usual day for me), and i’ve taken honors and AP’s (honors all 4, ap’s junior & senior year).</p>
<p>Only thing is, my ACT doesn’t seem to match my GPA and my other qualities. I got a 32 on English, 25 on Math, 28 on Reading, 25 on Science, and my combined reading/writing score was a 31 (getting a 10/12 on my essay helped). So you can all see that I am more naturally english/lit oriented, and my math/science skills are holding me back (even though I’ve gotten A’s in all my math/science courses). Do you think they’ll put my successes above my faults in my ACT score? or will they just look at the composite and make a decision without looking at the breakdown?</p>
<p>the reason I ask this is because some of my reach schools have a middle 50% range of 28-33, or 29-33… but in reality, and with what I want to study, will they place my score more in the middle of those with my English/Reading/Writing score? I want an honest answer, thanks. </p>
<p>I’d just hate to see a rejection letter largely based on a 4 hour test on a Saturday morning over 4 years of a hard-earned, good GPA. You know?</p>