<p>it was your essay that got you into Carnegie Mellon University or any other school. Feel free to post the name of the school you think the essay had a big impact on. (assuming that one or more part of your application is weak: SAT, Extracurricular, Recommendations, etc).</p>
<p>CMU (directly from an admissions officer) deosn't care much about the essay. He said that they once were going to admit someone, but his essay was about wanting to spam the government so they didnt accept him.</p>
<p>2nd post seems contradictory...</p>
<p>i think he is saying that the admissions officer told him that was the only instance he could think of where the essay was the reason for acceptance/rejection...</p>
<p>i think he/she is saying that the admissions officer told him that was the only instance he could think of where the essay was the reason for acceptance/rejection...</p>
<p>i think it depends on your major…i applied ED for creative writing and when i visited after being accepted, one of the department heads actually complimented me on it. but i guess they would look at a CW major’s essay a lot more closely than, say, engineering or compsci.</p>
<p>I have yet to have my essay appear to have any real importance on any of my applications, because as of right now I’ve only heard back from 6 of my 12 schools, 5 acceptances and 1 wait-list. And of those 6, the 5 I got into I kinda assumed I would, and the 1 wait-list was a sorta a mid-range but sorta a reach for me. It’s too bad though, as I really liked my essay. I normally write in more comedic styles (satire, farce, excessively sarcastic), but this time I actually put a lot of time into writing an essay about how a work by my favorite composer (Alexander Scriabin) completely changed my outlook on music. Took me quite some time to write, and I had it reviewed by friends, families, and teachers. So if there are any schools that really are interested in the essay, hopefully it’ll be helpful. But the only school I can think of that might care a bit more than usual is Ursinus, since I applied with the priority-select application and pretty much the only thing I had to submit besides my transcripts was a graded essay.</p>
<p>I hope CMU considers my essay a bit more than they might normally (even though it was posted a few posts up that they don’t) as that’d really boost my chances of getting in. Without it, I only stand a marginal chance (CMU’s one of my reach schools).</p>
<p>Unless you specifically get a compliment on your essay, you’ll never know whether the essay made a difference. I’d like to think that our son’s essay was pretty good for a computer scientist, but it wouldn’t have won any prizes for future English majors. (He had a computer program write the first paragraph and then went on to say that the results clearly showed he needed to improve his computer programming skills.)</p>