I agree with you OP. I think they give the essays a cursory once over, and not much more for the most part. As for all of the anecdotes about personal notes, its simply a yield tool. Everyone loves to hear how great their essay is, and it takes admissions roughly 30 seconds to cull something from an essay they can use to make a kid(and the parents) feel special.
@ECmotherx2 - I totally agree with you. I attended multiple info sessions with admissions officials, usually prior to campus tours. I personally spoke with many of them afterward, and in most sessions the essay question comes up. It seems to be a standard response that the schools take when they say every application/essay will be read twice, out of respect for the real person who is applying.
I am convinced, however, that due to volume, the essay readers get to know what they are looking for or not, they can all read very fast, and can almost instantly decide how impressed or not they are with the essay and the applicant. The essay can take hours, if not weeks, of work by the applicant, and in just a few scant minutes they are evaluated, as the adcom officer is on to the next one.
Like many CC users, I have given essay feedback to quite a few people here at CC and in other places, and I have often wondered if I have spent more time reviewing / making suggestions to an essay, than the admin officials who ultimately decide/weigh them.
I am not sure I agree with @planner03, particularly for the tippy top schools. There has to be some reason a school accepts some applicants over dozens of others, especially when the majority of applicants are competitive. Since almost all of the acceptance notes my pups got included some reference to something in the essay, and since the schools say they look to the essays to hear from the student in their own voice, why wouldn’t you believe them?
Our son had a UC application/essay reader review his essays. He fared better with acceptances than his sibling who had similar high stats, but didn’t have the benefit of having his essays reviewed and did not have the same quality of essays. So from our experience, I’d say they are very important. There are so many kids at their HS with near perfect grades and high test scores, that something must be the differentiator (in addition to randomness).
My daughter is a University of Rochester grad and spring of her senior year she was a volunteer at the annual junior college fair sponsored by 3 school districts. When she met the University of Rochester rep in person, they complimented her on her outstanding essay and so I would say, yes…
Absolutely, colleges read the essays! We attended a college’s event for alumni and their children where they staged a mock admissions committee in which the students and parents took part. Our review included the essays. The director of admissions spoke about their application review process and the use of essays was included.
Read The Gatekeepers. It is a great inside look at the admissions process at Wesleyan.
Anyway, there is abundant anecdotal info so far on this thread that indicates that many students’ essays have been read at various colleges.
Someone we know wrote an execrable essay for Michigan. Imagine a teen’s essay on Seinfeld episode *The Contest/i, full of innuendo and TMI. His friends and teachers begged him to reconsider, but he thought it was edgy. He got into Michigan, which convinced me that Michigan does not read essays. It was that bad. Schools that I know, for a fact, read essays did not seem to appreciate the essay as much :))
I 100% think its critical to the application…if a kid has the right stats (and most of them do)…then I would say its the top decider.
A fellow cynic, eh? Yes, I think adcoms know their audiences (and their humblebragging tendencies) quite well.
At least most, if not all, posters agree that ad coms do read essays.
People can debate as how careful the essays are read. But that doesn’t really matter. When competing with so many qualified candidates, every single detail to improve the odds, no matter how minor, counts.
The cynics can have their student write a short paragraph as their essay saying that they will not be writing the essay since the parent feels it is a waste of time. Let us know how it turns out.
Raising my hand. I know firsthand.
And a bad one can tip you out of contention, no matter the quantitative.
For some colleges, it may not be a big factor. For others, it may be huge. Unless your kid is applying entirely to schools that just care about GPA and test scores, why wouldn’t you want them to put in the effort?
My shred of evidence: many years ago, Tufts live-blogged their ED decision meetings. The idea was to give potential applicants a better sense of what the adcoms were looking for. They didn’t mention identifying details, obviously. And they didn’t mention every single application (also obviously).
They discussed GPA (in the sense of seniors slacking off, which meant either deferring or rejecting the applicant), ECs, and the like. And they mentioned specifics about essays. A lot. It really was helpful and insightful.
The second year that Tufts tried this, one of my D’s applied ED. And they mentioned her. Not by name, but it was clear that it was her. And they commented on her essay on the blog, about what made it notable.
When she received her admissions notification, there was nothing written on it about what the adcom liked about her essay (as there was for D2 on her ED application). The comments were only made in the actual admissions discussion.
You will be hard pressed to find any hard evidence. Colleges protect the admission process dearly. Each is different and finding out how one particular school does it is akin to a CIA special ops mission.
All you can do is submit a complete application and await the result.
At LAC, it seems to be a big factor. Add my son ('17) to the list of accepted students who received handwritten notes responding to their essays. At three of the LACs he got into, he got such notes from admissions personnel. I think it matters.
Yes of course they read essays, but will quickly drop an application at the first red flag. Admissions is looking for reasons to deny an application, not vice versa.
People keep mentioning that tufts has shown people how they review an application. Is that avialible online? Im not interested in tufts specifically, but it sounds interesting.
My 2 cents…
- It depends entirely on the school.
- It depends on if you are a (?) applicant. Top scores/GPA/ecs may get read out of curiosity and to confirm they are making the right decision (so, likely to hurt you if it is not written well); bottom scores/gpa/ecs won't get read; bubble kids' essays will get read and it will make a difference.
- It depends on the AO. I think they all devise their own way of slicing and dicing.
My DD2016 received 2 notes that indicated her essays were at least glanced at long enough to extract some relevant info.
DD2018 recently applied and was accepted at a SEC school that has an essay. Shortly after the app opened, DD2018 received a mass email, from the regional AO, that specifically said to not stress over the essay, they were not looking for a literary masterpiece, just a bit of insight and to keep it short and concise.
Frankly, I think the short answer questions are the way to go rather than a long essay. They are harder to craft and speak volumes.
I’ve been out of the game for a few years, so I’ve no idea what Tufts shows right now, but I do know that the liveblogs I mentioned have disappeared. I understand why, but it’s a pity because the insight was useful, regardless of where a student was applying.
Our top state university specifically emphasized the importance of the essay. They said they were looking for something that would set an applicant apart.
The person who checked in my daughter for Admitted Students weekend at Princeton said, “Oh, I remember your essay!” upon hearing her name.