Hi! I was wondering if admissions officers will read the entire essay that you send in or if they just read the first sentence and decide to continue reading or toss it. For example, if you started an essay out with something to contrast with the rest of the essay, would that be effective?
Try to remember, you’re not writing this for a high school English teacher or the SAT. It’s your college app and not the time to play wutj style or artifice.
Write it as if an admissions officer is going to read the whole essay. There is no way for any of us to tell you whether or not admissions folks read every single word of every essay. Make sure your essay is straightforward and true to who you are. Don’t overthink or try too hard to be unique.
I have a slightly different take on this. Given the huge number of applications each AO is initially responsible for, just as a function of time and effort management, I suspect some app’s are tossed based purely on the applicant not hitting some objective thresholds in grades and test scores. There are probably also a very limited number of applications that go to the admit pile with a relative cursory reading of much of the file based on some combination of objective stat’s, extremely strong hooks (e.g. athletic recruit, scion of major donor, etc…) and/or truly unique and outstanding accomplishments. This leaves us with the vast number of academically qualified applicants, maybe 15-20 thousand plus, where the hard choices are made. Given the statistics we can see from other highly competitive schools that have broken out acceptance rates by test scores and HS record (e.g. https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/profile16.html; https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts – the Brown stats are particularly granular), we see that higher objective stat’s students are admitted at a materially higher rate, in other words the system is not one where once you hit the minimum hurdle, all applicants are “equal”. While there is going to be some level of correlation between high stat’s candidates who get better LoR’s and write better essays, the differences in acceptance rates and percent of matriculates suggests higher stat candidates have an advantage.
So now we have to speculate as to why a “1450” candidate gets in when “1540” candidates do not assuming similar HS grades/rigor. Obviously it is down to the LoR’s, essays and EC’s (putting aside remaining hooks like URM, first gen, legacy etc…). Of these 3 things, the only one that is fully within the control of the applicant at the time of the application are the essays. So my advice would be, the further down the objective stat’s range you are, the more you have to write an essay that will grab an AO’s attention, especially in the first paragraph. So if you are well below the median in objective stat’s, I say “go big or go home” in your essay. If you are above the median, a more conservative approach is probably warranted. Obviously write the best essay that you can to advocate yourself and your fit with the school, but you might want to avoid going out on limbs that may get attention, but not necessarily in a good way.
BK your analysis is excellent and well-put.
I would say that the advice from lookingforward and me may reflect some exposure to various applicant’s efforts to be “creative” and “unique.” A little Strunk and White could go far.
I think we all agree, just putting it a little differently. To the original poster, your essay will most likely be read in its entirety if admissions is on the fence about you, as BK said.
In general, an essay is pretty neutral. A really bad one can harm, and really outstanding one can help, but, for the reasons outlined by BK, most have much less effect on admissions than commonly thought.
So don’t stress and most of all, be yourself.
@compmom , further to your point on the relative importance of the three “subjectives”, in recent conversations I have had with 2 senior AO’s at Yale and the AO responsible for the region where I live, when the subject came up of what differentiates candidates all with super competitive HS records and test scores, the LoR’s came up immediately. This makes a lot of sense as these are independent opinions coming from the most part professional educators. The highly selective schools want students that will “make a difference” – it could be leadership, inspiration, intellectual power, anything that makes a strong personal mark with the LoR writer. If you cannot truly stand out in the small pond of a HS environment, it says a lot about your prospect of making a positive difference in college. When the topic turned to essays, it was also interesting to hear that they are looking for the voice of a 17/18 year old telling a story consistent with all the other parts of their app, not a polished essay of a “47 year old lawyer”.
Excellent post BK!
I agree about letters of recommendation, including those outside of school when relevant (for arts supplement for instance).
And about the voice of a young person, not the polish…if only everyone got that!
@compmom @BKSquared thank you both so much! This post has been incredibly helpful.