<p>Our experience has been that the essays are read. At 2 of my D’s undergrad audtions she was asked during the audition interview to elaborate on something she had writen in her essay. I agree that when a student has someone else write their essay it becomes useless but should it be refered to during an interview then it really can be used to weed people out. You need to know and be 100% comfortable with exactly what was written if there is a chance you will be questioned on it. Perhaps I don’t know the system well enough but when she was asked about her essay then we believed that it was important, She has written and submitted her grad school essays and we still believe they will make a difference.</p>
<p>I think it is reasonable to ask a student why he is applying to a school, what he plans to major in, and how his intended studies fit in to his future plans. The intended major and career will often change during college, but an applicant should have thought about these topics and done some research on the school. Questions such as “what famous person would you like to have dinner with and why”, which have appeared on college applications, are silly.</p>
<p>^ I’d answer that one with Ellen DeGenerous. She has an awesome chef, it would be great food and creatively done, and she is possibly the most genuinely caring and funny individual out there today with a strong social conscience. If I were elaborate further, it would definitely speak to my values and interests. Just saying… :)</p>
<p>I think college essays are ridiculous because some kids have money/relatives and can pay or get help to write a superior essay.</p>
<p>I think letters of recommendations for undergrad are also ridiculous. Nearly every student can find a teacher or two who will write a rec. Also, I think it’s too much of a burden for HS teachers to expect them to write LORs.</p>
<p>It may, at best, used as a tie-breaker IMO, especially when one has to make heart-breaking decisions as an adcom.</p>
<p>I would assume that people with high stats think essays are useless and people with borderline stats think essays are useful. It all depends on your perspective. If my kid’s stats are 75% percentile for college X - why write an essay that may or may not help. If my kid’s stats are 25% percentile - then all an essay can do is help. Maybe that brilliantly conceived essay is what puts him over the top (I’d like to dream!)</p>
<p>And letters of rec - seriously do they ever receive any that say “Don’t accept this kid whatever you do…” No, they all say “This kid walks on water…” What’s the point?</p>
<p>The essays are the last check on a common app college getting inundated with applications from students who are looking for scalps and would be very unlikely to attend. </p>
<p>As for their use in admissions (putting aside Chicago), I suspect AO’s use essays primarily as plusses or minuses in evaluating the close call students.</p>
<p>I’m conflicted on this topic. On the one hand, I was very happy with my son’s essays because I felt they did a great job conveying who he really is. In my utopian way of thinking, I felt confident that schools would know from his writing whether or not he would be a good fit into their communities. My husband wanted us to “edit” one essay in particular because he thought it made S look too far off-center, and I said we couldn’t because it was HIS voice and he really is quite off-center. He needs to be somewhere where those types of kids are appreciated. </p>
<p>Then at some point I realized how much help some other students were getting on their essays, and it felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. I honestly assumed that naturally all kids were completely writing their essays on their own, that even if someone else reviewed them the editing would be relatively minimal (you have a couple run-on sentences, you might want to clarify what you mean by that statement, etc.). College consultants and coaches have never existed in my world; I didn’t even realize until recently that they existed at all. </p>
<p>I’m assuming that this is a bigger issue at the most highly selective schools. S applied to a couple highly selective schools, and in one way, it does bother me a bit that he is likely going up against some others who may have used coaches and such. In another way, I have to trust that his essays will make a difference to the right colleges and that he’ll end up at one of those colleges. What else can you do???</p>
<p>I shudder to think of college admissions that don’t take into account an applicant’s essay / personal statement at all though. I absolutely want each one of my children to be viewed as more than a set of numbers.</p>
<p>I’d vote with complete farce. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>There’s no check on whether the applicant is lying about his/her situation.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s no check on whether the applicant wrote the essay by him or herself.</p></li>
<li><p>Brilliant minds in math, science, engineering often do not do well on essays. Yes, it is important to be able to communicate clearly and logically in English, but doesn’t your score on the essay portion of the SAT grade that?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It’s possible that bad essays and bad recs are used to weed out applicants who otherwise look good from their stats–and by bad, I don’t just mean boring or bland, but something that actually raises a red flag.</p>
<p>FWIW – The weakest part of my S’s application was his SAT essay score. He was a decent writer in high school and had several writing awards, but his handwriting was awful and I believe that was the reason he didn’t get a higher score. While I don’t blame the SAT essay scorer for the unwillingness to decipher my DS’s scribbles, I am glad it wasn’t the only evidence of his writing abilities that was reviewed by the college adcoms.</p>
<p>Since placing importance on essays on average benefits the more affluent applicants (e.g., a greater percentage of them will be able to afford to pay for high-priced help in writing, editing, etc…), maybe it is a covert way to change the ratio of full pays to need-dependent students for schools that portray themselves as completely need-blind. I am only partly joking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It would not be surprising if the majority of college students attend colleges which did not consider their essays at all (e.g. community colleges, moderately and less selective state universities, or even state flagships in places like Texas and Iowa that admit a portion of their freshmen with stats only).</p>
<p>
I can’t think of any reason why an essay that’s been worked over by who knows how many editors and may contain a completely fictional narrative should have any weight whatsoever versus a four-year academic and extracurricular record and the results from a set of standardized tests. It’s ridiculous. Given the nonsense that surrounds production of essays they shouldn’t even count as tiebreakers. They should simply be dropped from the admissions process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think the applicant has had control over many parts of their application. How much did the applicant choose to apply themselves in the classroom over the years? How rigorous a course schedule did they choose to pursue? What extra curricular or work choices did they make outside of school? What kind of relationships did they establish with teachers and others, and how did they do on the qualities that matter in a recommendation over time? How much did they choose to prepare for standaridized tests ? (My kids used only books for test prep, no outside courses, and one scored a 2380 superscore – so anyone can do it without pricey classes if they choose to). I think these long term choices tell much more about the applicant than the essay does, personally. </p>
<p>I think they essay is often about improving the college’s yield (has this student researched our college, and are they likely to accept our offer?). Or will the applicant jump through our hoops – because a “Where’s Waldo” prompt is SO relevant to our college curriculum and whether you are qualified to attend! I am not very sympathetic to the colleges at all on using the essays as a weeder process. They market like crazy to get more applicants, then put the essay hurdles up to make the process harder. How about just reducing their marketing efforts instead?</p>
<p>deleted …</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A professor at MIT showed that SAT/ACT essay scores were almost 100% correlated to length – to the point that he could correctly guess the score 3/4ths of the time from across the room. Very good students – many with writing awards – do poorly on these essays: if your kid is a slow but meticulous writer, has poor handwriting or is just concise and to the point rather than throwing the kitchen sink at the prompt, he or she will generally fare much worse than you would expect.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not true IME. While most brilliant STEM oriented students tend to dislike writing essays, most who had and took their K-12 writing education halfway seriously rose to the occasion when it was demanded. They had no issues with writing college essays for the humanities/social science courses taken to fulfill distribution requirements and getting comparable or better excellent grades and feeling the course itself was a welcome break…even if they disliked the essay writing part. </p>
<p>Even knew a few who double-majored in a STEM and a writing-intensive humanities/social science course at my college. </p>
<p>While most may have whined about having to do it, it wasn’t because they couldn’t do it at a sufficiently high level. It was more akin to someone not wanting to do the dishes or take out the garbage…not because they can’t do it at all/at a comparable level with their STEM courses. </p>
<p>Information was gained not only from having attended a STEM-centered public magnet high school, but also working with plenty of engineering/CS graduates who’d look askance at anyone who complains about having to take writing heavy courses or writing in general because “it’s too hard” or “they can’t perform at the same level as their STEM courses”. </p>
<p>Then again, whining about it because it was “too hard” wasn’t done among my HS/college classmates or my work colleagues because it effectively communicated to them that “I’m not smart enough to cut the mustard”. </p>
<p>Any STEM undergrad applying for a position who complained about writing essays in an interview because it’s “too hard” are immediately rejected from further consideration by older STEM colleagues conducting the interviews.</p>
<p>As often happens I can agree with both sides of this issue. My D wrote a very personal essay that shows her values and love of learning. I think it really adds to her application (in its final form). Her first draft was very confusing and needed clarification, which she wrote herself after feedback. I don’t know any kids at our school who hire outside college help; many of them apply to schools that don’t require essays. I do know kids who hire tutors to get them through difficult classes. So, while more affluent kids can hire essay help, they can also get test prep and tutors to keep the GPA up.</p>
<p>I don’t mind the supplemental ones, many of them were very short ‘why do you want to come here’ types. She enjoyed writing the Where’s Waldo one for Chicago, and has a couple of other schools that want more in depth essays, but I think these small schools look at those essays carefully. Pomona says they are looking not only at how you write but also your thought process. If other students are getting lots of help on those, there is really nothing we can do about it. It would be very ironic if a student had someone else write Haverford’s essay about their honor code!</p>
<p>I’m on the side that believes the essay has a definite place in selective admissions. Maybe I’m naive, but I think the content and thoughts conveyed in the essay are more important to colleges than the writing style or perfect execution. It’s not just about whether you can put sentences together to make a coherent whole, but what that whole says about you. This fact, imo, mitigates any help a student might get from a pro editor or consultant. Unless the essay is a complete fraud bought and ghost written, which I think is a rarity, there is still information about the applicant that differentiates students from one another. So if you’re a college trying to decide between two applicants with similar stats and ECs, the essays provide a small but valuable window into the minds of each student.</p>
<p>My kids agonized over their essays. My daughter is a wonderful writer but she had the hardest time because she cared so much about the writing itself. All of their essays provided a window into who they are that would never be apparent just from their grades and test scores. I have no doubt that it added a humanity to both of their applications, even in the case of my son, who isn’t the most expressive writer on the planet.
If I were a college admissions person, I’d care about the essays and use them to look for reasons to admit students who might not stand out in the sea of high GPA high SAT
applicants.</p>