<p>No. Your score on the essay portion of the SAT grades how good you are at getting a high score on the essay portion of the SAT. That’s it. There’s no correlation with anything else. This score typically gives you a good idea at how many hours/how much money has been spent on training the student for the SAT. </p>
<p>If essays are “fraudulent” because the students’ parents can hire expensive services to improve these essays, then SAT and all other test scores are equally fraudulent for the same reasons.</p>
<p>Suppose we agree that colleges should and do look at essays as a way to see how the student thinks. How does that work in practice though? Are there categories of thinkers and they choose so many in each category, such as “highly analytical,” “strongly creative”, “wonderfully expressive”, etc.? That is unlikely, as it would be extremely cumbersome and there could be significant overlap in the categories. Or are two basic categories: “interesting” and “dull”. My sense is that the essays cause the admissions people to say either “I love this kid,” or “I am not enthusiastic about this kid.”</p>
<p>Regarding SAT scores: sure a kid can be tutored endlessly, paid for by his rich parents. In the end, though, he still has to answer the questions by himself and write the test essay all by himself. The same can not be said for the application essays. GPA can also be impacted by family influence and similar factors, but there will still be a record of 3 and a quarter years of schoolwork done for a variety of teachers, such that the overall pattern reflects much more on the child than his parents.</p>
<p>As I said on the thread about holistic admissions–if you don’t like a particular school’s admissions rubric, don’t apply there. No one is forcing you to.</p>
<p>There are a lot of great schools out there…if you want a school that evaluates applicants strictly on the numbers without considering any “soft” or “holistic” criteria, there are plenty of them out there. You can decide to restrict your applications to just those schools. </p>
<p>The more holistic schools won’t miss your application. They will receive plenty of applications from students who think admissions should be about more than just the numbers. Likewise, they may choose to not apply to schools that consider “the numbers” only.</p>
<p>There are plenty of schools out there that adhere to each of these philosophies. </p>
<p>If you don’t want to write essays–don’t write essays.</p>
<p>But don’t complain that a school you want requires essays. A major part of what makes some of these schools so attractive is their student body–which was chosen in a holistic process that included consideration of essays.</p>
<p>One of the things that we didn’t realize was that once you have uploaded an essay to the Common App and actually submitted it to a school, you cannot change the essay to something else for a different school. I think we would have considered a little more carefully which essay to use had we known that they would ALL get the same one. </p>
<p>That said, I tend to agree that the essays are more of a pain than anything else, and probably don’t convey all that much. However, it is the one potential place where they can actually hear a student. I tend to think that in the future there will be a trend to including videos as an application option. Also, it becomes feasible to do interviews by Skype with students anywhere.</p>
<p>Many prefer that admissions were based on the area of the application in which they are strongest and, for which, there can be less fudging by outside influencers. The tone is that admissions are not fair and here is why. I’m sympathetic. But looking at the graduation rates from the most highly selective universities–ones who often provide many essay prompts and for whom it could be assumed many $$ are spent on tutors and test prep and private counselors to boot–they are uniformly high. In other words, whether these adcoms are being hoodwinked by highly edited essays, over-prepped test scores, grade inflated high schools, overly enthusiastic LoRs, or any other great gaming the system tactics, the students, once there, thrive. In fact, they are leaders and go on to accomplish many wonderful achievements.</p>
<p>There may be no ideal way to rule on who has best potential to thrive at a top university amid so many who are qualified. In fact, there is likely no reason for adcoms to worry over such things since their methods bring in just the sort of students they are looking for. So it goes in a seller’s market and I do feel the angst of deserving students who are, through no fault of their own, not offered a place. My complaint about all the essays required is it gives hope to students that they have some real influence over the final outcome–when essays are likely a small factor in final decisions. And that hope by so many students translates into so much anxiety during the process and reasons to feel bad about themselves in the bargain. Wish this wasn’t so.</p>
<p>I believe the smaller schools DO read essays because there have been comments on the acceptance letter…perhaps they aren’t read by the comment writer until AFTER the acceptance, but at small colleges there is a high probability someone will read them. At a large uni, perhaps it’s what tips the kid in or out when there are equal candidates. I think in general kids read too much into the prompts and try too hard to ‘guess’ what is wanted. Or they are simply too literal…as in the diversity example. I believe that comes from how our high schools test kids and how the kids are expected to push out an essay that reflects whatever the teacher wants. I don’t mind the volume of essays because I think kids apply to too many colleges…if it’s shows them down alittle then that, in my opinion, is a good thing.</p>
<p>I can’t find the reference now but there have been several threads on CC with instructions of how to make different versions of the Common App for different schools. Apparently, it’s not obvious but it’s possible</p>
<p>Yes, you can change up the essays…you have to version the original common app which my son #2 did because he didn’t want to use the same essay for all.</p>
<p>Then you log back in, and go to the common application page, and select replicate to create a new version. It will copy everything except the essay. You then need to move colleges to that new version. Select them as if you are going to delete them, and it will ask whether you want to delete or move them. Wehn you move them you will have to redo the “future plans” section, and upload new essays</p>
<p>Off topic, but the need to version to make a change is ridiculous. D2 has had some accomplishments she would like to list in her application since putting in her EA application in late October. Need to jump through the hoops of copying/creating a new application just to do that. Silly.</p>
<p>I think the SAT writing section is even more a farce than the essays. Little time for thought, formulaic, and graded in wildly different ways. I understand colleges pay almost no attention to them and think that is a good thing.</p>
<p>Do not copy the application. The last thing AOs want is a ten page application with two changes on it (for example). Instead send admissions a letter or the regional rep an e-mail detailng the accomplishments.</p>
<p>CTScoutMom - wow, thanks for the info. We will look at whether D wants to change essays for the last 2 apps. Hopefully if so she will be able to follow the complicated steps. Why make it so messy?</p>
<p>The GFG, post #34: lol to paragraph 1, which pretty much sums up many discussions recently. Concurring in part with paragraph 2; the essay does give the admissions personnel an “out,” to claim that one applicant offered a better fit, or added a better component to the class. </p>
<p>If this happens for diversity purposes, I am for it.<br>
If this happens for “development” purposes (for “development,” read “donations to the school”), I think it’s questionable.<br>
If this happens because the admissions staff was entertained (e.g., “chicken nuggets”), then I think the priorities are out of whack. (Also, I can’t resist remarking that you left out the fact that USAMO scores are undervalued.)</p>
<p>I read somewhere that the admissions personnel at some unnamed school thought that use of a semicolon was a sure sign of an adult interfering in the essay. I found this annoying, because QMP used semicolons correctly by 7th grade. Earlier on, I predicted that students would eventually be asking on CC, “Is this essay bad enough to seem authentic?”</p>
<p>I sent to three of my schools (including my current one) the rough draft horribly edited version of my essay, and I got into all of them. They’re probably not that big of a deal. On the other hand, I sent in ****ty essays to Rice, Brown, and Barnard (!!!), and I got rejected there too.</p>
<p>My oldest child is 28. My youngest is a freshman. When oldest went, the common app was brand new and few schools to which she was applying accepted it. But I digress…</p>
<p>Some people need to take a chill. Yes, your child is an academic wizard and has done everything right, with no help from anyone - ever. Since birth. All academics come incredibly easy, is in the most advanced of classes and can play the oboe with the Philharmonic, sing with the angels and is the starting singles player on his tennis team. But everyone has issues. Everyone. So do not for one minute assume that just because your kid can do all that, so can any other kid if only they’d put their mind to it. The attitude, quite frankly, is arrogant and presumptuous. STEM kids should no sooner be excused from essay writing than humanities kids should excused from the math and science sections. </p>
<p>And I just think it to be very much tempting fate to be so sure of one’s kid. Life is long and rarely is it without a curve or two. One of my children had a classmate whose parent thought every choice their kid made was the perfect choice, the best way to do things, and the results were NHS, popularity, great stats etc. Turns out, every single kid knew this kid was a massive cheat on just about every level, and because of that, a lot of parents knew that as well. By the time the kids were juniors, everyone would smile and nod and pray to God they weren’t as completely clueless as this mother. Fast forward four years, it’s the Junior year of college and this kid was expelled for cheating on an exam following a slightly off the rails moment of kinda stalking a girl he broke up with. Im just saying, she doesn’t brag nearly as much these days. </p>
<p>Sorry for the rant… but the assumptions of what “help” is in both breadth and depth was ridiculous, especially the leap that if a kid gets help they’ve done nothing themselves or that HS is no place for mistakes or that there is no evolving and growth to be done along the way. It’s insulting.</p>