And everyone thinks there recs (which most teachers won’t share) are 10/10. The only thing that shows is that some people have a high perception of themselves.
Having read many, many essays, I’d agree.
The users on CC are not a representative subsection of college-bound seniors and their parents. Those users/children of users who got into a top college are even less representative of the general population. I’m not sure I’d read much else into the comments.
I don’t know if they read the essays, but I think they must skim them. I think ADCOMS take their jobs and responsibility seriously. As we stated before when most applicants have top grades and stats and the gold standard rec letter, what else you got to differentiate students but the essay?
The other now “in vogue” idea is for the rec letter to be highly personal and include some weaknesses as well as strengths in order to again get away from the cookie cutter generic letter, that only gives the singular impression “this student is awesome.”
@preppedparent agree, at some point AOCOMS need to differentiate; essays, LORs may fill that need.
I have long wondered about the value of the LOR. Students, of course, are going to choose someone who is willing and able to write a glowing review. What good are 3 letters saying John Doe is awesome, you should pick him? Worse are requirements for a LOR from a guidance counselor, particularly at a large public school where the GC, rarely, if ever sees the student until a brief meeting late in junior year or senior year to kickstart the application process. I could see the potential value in a LOR that discusses the pros/cons of a particular student, if there is an actual relationship between the recommeder/recommendee.
I’ve wondered if any university had tested whether they got the same results with and without the essay - say taking a subsample of the pool, first grading it without the essay, then adding it back in, or even just seeing if essay scores correlate with first year grades the way hs grades and test scores do.
I think the answer is it hasn’t really been tested much because there wouldn’t be any strategic advantage to being a top school (which is where the essays come into play) and not having essays. The whole drama of writing the essays, the caffeine fueled adcom reading marathons, the notes from the essays back on the acceptances, is too effective to minimize.
LOL, my older son’s essay was pretty good for an engineer. It was not fantastic. He said right off the bat he’d rather have a computer program write his essays.
I’ve read a lot of essays - most are (IMO) too earnest or too trite. They are nicely written, heartfelt, but they all sound kind of the same. From time to time though someone sends me one that is really special. It doesn’t take any longer to read a good one, in fact, it probably takes less time.
As for LOR - I agree the GC ones are kind of silly in a large school. Our GC actually gets two teacher recommendations (not necessarily the same teachers the student uses for the application) in addition to the parent brag sheet. My younger son asked a math teacher to write a letter even though he’d only gotten a B+ in the class. He showed it to my son, and while I didn’t read it myself, I understood why my son had loved this teacher so much. He really got him. (My kid loved math and was great at the theoretical aspects, but had issues with memorizing formulas.)
Re GC LoRs, here’s where a small private well-funded private school can make a difference. I’m not saying it is fair, just that it is what it is. DS’s GC interviewed his teachers, including ones that weren’t asked to provide a LoR, in order to make her recommendations to him and to inform her LoR. Her takeaway was that he selected ECs and courses out of genuine interest, and was the polar opposite of a resume padder. I wasn’t in the AO room, but I think her LoR played a part in countering his good but not stellar GPA.
@planner03 - what I wrote in my post was that in my case, an AO went to the trouble of going to the internet to read my blog - that was referenced in a very short answer to a supplemental question, not the Common App Essay. My point was that AOs are looking for anything that can help them distinguish one qualified candidate from the next, and that not only are essays read by multiple AOs multiple times, but also responses to short, supplemental, questions. Folks on this thread are trying to be helpful to OP by providing anecdotes - not “data” - that show that AOs, engaged in “holistic” admissions, do care about the quality of writing on students’ applications and spend time trying to ferret out those applicants who care a lot about good, thoughtful, creative, writing too. Sorry if this sounded self-congratulatory. That wasn’t my intent at all.
"In vogue " doesn’t translate to savvy. And what’s in vogue on CC isn’t magic, either. As it is, your teacher loving you may not mean a letter that hits the mark.
Re: essays: “most are (IMO) too earnest or too trite.” Or irrelevant enough to wonder what the kid was thinking. It’s not the “quality” of writing, per se, but the understanding behind it. It’s not a writing exercise in a hs class. But I mean, for tippy tops.
Think of holistic like cooking One bad ingredient can spoil the whole product. One great one doesn’t transform a mediocre.
The problem here is that one person’s thoughtful, creative essay sounds trite and repetitive to others. The best example of this was the student whose essay consisted of repeating “Black Lives Matter” ad nauseum, and got into Stanford and Yale.
Each college too might use the essay differently. When Weslyan reps came to our high school, I think they said, and don’t quote me that what they are looking at is specifically whether it is well written with correct grammar and punctuation. They weren’t a college particularly focused on content, so much as process, i.e. can the writer communicate effectively and is the essay well-written showing some basic competency in writing. I think the more elites are using it to distinguish candidates and in some cases are looking for stand-outs and to be amused.
That’s a simple, and very illustrative, analogy. I wonder why I never heard it before, but good on you!
My kids mostly hang with competitive students. From what I have heard from them and their parents, they are all getting advice, corrections, and in some cases very extensive revisions by parents, teachers, school counselors, private counselors etc…
I am amazed that admissions committees take these writing samples seriously whatsoever. We know a student who didn’t even write any part of her CA essay.
This whole process is so overwhelming and I still don’t understand how helping with an essay is any different than giving helpful advice during a standardized test.
That’s why I think essays are not as important as some people might think.
As for the Black Lives Matter kid, he’s apparently already an activist, offered more than, say, just founding a club, holding a fundraiser, or claiming to be “passionate” about any old something or other. It may be that writing BLM was a risk that, in his app’s context, spoke volumes.
It’s no hint for the average kid.
Each year, there are kids who write poems or take liberties with the CA essay in their own unique way like BLM. It can be a differentiator, certainly involves some risk taking, that can hit the mark or backfire. I agree that this kind of approach works best when it adds to the application in some way that it makes sense. Kid here was an activist.
Essays are read, yes. Essays matter, yes. Choose to ignore this at your own risk …
Remember most are average. That average depends on the population being considered. There would be no highs or lows without that vast middle ground. Skimming is a form of reading and I’m sure admissions essay readers are adept at knowing when to read in more depth.
Just more anecdote – my D3 kid exceeded expectations for merit awards, which we attribute largely to his essay putting him over the edge. His essay was designed to show what he brings to campus, as compared to all the other fairly accomplished upper middle class white males. He worked backwards from that message to come up with ways to tell it in a funny, true way.
We didn’t fool ourselves that it was anything but marketing when an adcom comments on a student’s essay – it makes the student feel recognized and valued by that school. Getting an email from his adcom on a Sunday during the adcom’s file-reading season, with the adcom remarking on something he wrote about, made my kid glow with enthusiasm for that school. It’s nice to be recognized.
For both of my children DS15 and DS17, we had references in several acceptance letters to their essays. Not all, but many. Sure just another anecdote, but enough that I am convinced that all essays by applicants with stats above the minimum are read by admission officers.
However, OP can certainly test their theory if they are applying to schools this fall. Just submit random words as their essay submission and please let us know the results.
My son was invited to the UC Berkeley Regents Scholarship interviews based on his UC essays. He was told they give the applications of high score/GPA students to faculty volunteers in relevant fields who read the essays and decide which students to invite. He had an enjoyable time talking with a CS professor who was very interested in the activities he had mentioned in his essays.
Other than that, I think only Kenyon College mentioned his essay in their acceptance, though I would suppose the other colleges read them.
I am certain that D’s essays strongly contributed to the strength of her application and several reps made comments about what she wrote about in her essays in handwritten notes (which I agree are part of marketing. I have seen other CCers comment that they, too received comments from the same schools that she did, so I think handwritten notes and personalized comments are more a matter of school policy than of one particular essay standing out).
It was clear that D’s scholarship essays for one school were read quite thoroughly and she was given very thoughtful feedback by an English prof. It was quite clear that the rep for the school she ended up choosing knew exactly who she was and what she had written when she visited the school (and she knew each and every one of the students from our area that were admitted).