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<p>Good for you, PLME21maibe! This is, in general, a very civil message board. I don’t always agree with what folks post here, but over time I have come to respect even those with whom I often disagree. Too many other message boards quickly degrade into flame-war sites, and I would hate to see that happen here.</p>
<p>Epiphany, your statement, “But yes, even a thoroughly-student-written-without-external-edits essay can be misleading. What I mean is, there are students who find it difficult to articulate Who They Are for a couple of valid reasons,” is dead on.</p>
<p>Perfect reason why the essay should have very, very little to do with the admissions process, particularly when not followed up on with an interview (phone or in person)… That, along with the fact that it could be totally plagiarized, could have been written by someone else, could be an incredible exaggeration of events, etc, etc. etc. Again, solely my opinion.</p>
<p>The fact is that most selective colleges require supplementary essays except for Harvard and Dartmouth. It is possible that the top colleges would like the student to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the school. Or, they want to protect their yield. As for those who plagiarize their essays, all these schools require freshman writing. If the student is not of the right material, he/she may get into trouble eventually when taking courses requiring intensive writing. For engineering students, they are not competing against the humanity students. And, they have their SAT II requirements anyway. </p>
<p>DS3 is applying this year. He has written six main essays that are convertible into various versions of common essays and supplement essays. In addition, he has written another 7-8 short ones tailored for specific questions from the schools he applies. All these are for about nine schools including the merit scholarship application for our instate school. So, it is quite a large effort. He actually enjoyed writing some of the short essays. His topics include discussions related to the movies Good Will Hunting and 50/50, as well as the financial crisis. His AP English teacher edited a few for him. These essays also allow him to use for applying for external merit scholarship. </p>
<p>The writings have trained him to put his thoughts down on paper in a way that is not often required in school. It has forced him to analyze personal experiences and dig deep for insight. In addition, he has even edited the essays for a few friends. Now whether the essays are a useful component of the applicant evaluation process is debatable. Nonetheless, I believe that it has been a good experience for him.</p>
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<p>Another reason is to ensure that the aspiring students are a good fit or at least, knows he/she’s not a good fit and will tolerate that civilly so the adcoms can ensure some continuity of the campus community culture…especially if the campus is small enough that admitting just a few dozen students who aren’t either of the above could disrupt that very continuity to the discomfort of the college community and its alums. </p>
<p>For instance, someone writing about their aspirations to join a fraternity/sorority, enjoy a campus with a big sports culture, and/or demonstrates hatred/vehement disagreement* with GBLTQ/hippies/women/radical lefty students and treating them as human beings with the same rights as everyone else for whatever reason would be a very poor fit for schools like Oberlin or Reed and adcoms will take that into account when evaluating application essays. That…and the applicant concerned clearly demonstrated he/she couldn’t be bothered to do basic research on the institutions’ campus community cultures. </p>
<p>On the flipside, a few HS classmates who have done alumni interviews/outreach work for Dartmouth have admitted that aspiring students who are aspiring radical Marxist-Leninist/Maoists seeking to start another revolutionary activist movement tend to be looked upon very skeptically as candidates for inclusion in the Dartmouth campus community…especially if their vocal older alums have anything to say about it. </p>
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<li>Including believing they shouldn’t exist or are a “pestilence on humanity”.</li>
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