<p>if there are 2000 places and 1000 goto hooked applicants then 1000 are left.</p>
<p>If only about 1700 essays are good then 1000/1700 = 58% or rough ~ 50% since we don’t care about super exact numbers.</p>
<p>As for what qualities are in a good essay: </p>
<p>A) Easy and simple to read.
B) Shows qualities schools are looking for in students. e.g. passion for learning; helping the community, neighborhood or school; good judgement/morals/character.
C) writer comes as a likable human being. </p>
<p>You’d be surprised how many essays do none of that. </p>
<p>This article is interesting. Doesn’t speak to those not admitted but it does show (a) you need a very high unweighted GPA, 3.8 or above, and (b) the students admitted and attending as freshman were rejected by two other schools. The second fact is pretty interesting. Either the admissions process is somewhat random at the tippy top or different admissions officers at other colleges viewed their files differently or had different institutional requirements. For students in the midst of the admissions frenzy now, perhaps it would be helpful to know that even the students at Harvard today were themselves rejected by 2 schools.</p>
Ah, here’s the source of confusion. You’ve got fewer “good” essays than you’ve got slots to fill? What if you’ve got FIVE times as many good essays as slots?</p>
<p>Your point “C” is interesting. I don’t see that discussed a whole lot and it’s more apparent when you compare essays from people that did or didn’t get in.</p>
<p>@JustOneDad
It’s a rough estimate man. There might be 3400 good essay (which would be the 10% good essay figure I threw out earlier). The main point I am trying to make is the amount of people who apply with good essays is incredibly small compared to the total body of applicants. And the essays are much more varied than gpas or test scores. </p>
<p>And thanks. Point C was a huge revelation. A good essay is like a good movie. It needs to pull on the heart strings of the reader. AND I DON’T MEAN A SOB STORY. Just like the protagonist of a good movie has to come off likable, so too does the writer of a good essay. Without this, I feel an applicant has no chance of getting accepted to HYPSM without a hook. </p>
<p>@JustOneDad
ya it is but in context by the time an applicant hits top 30 national universities, the importance of essays drops substantially. </p>
<p>Or in other words. @ HYPSM an applicant is playing to win. @ above top 30 nat uni, an applicant is playing to not lose. They don’t necessarily need to come of likable or even show universities the qualities they are looking to see. They just need to avoid any damaging statements. Admissions process at that point is mostly grades, test scores and possibly EC based. </p>
<p>Interesting points on the essay. Of course, the applicant has to have the background to back up the essay (unless they are fabricating information-hopefully not).</p>
<p>If there are no standout ECs or life story or special accomplishments it would be hard to show how the applicant has strongly benefitted their school or community etc. </p>
<p>@bomerr makes a great point: essays are very important.</p>
<p>@Wje9164be, yes the process is idiosyncratic. Different schools value different things. Different essays are submitted to different schools. The same person may show a different amount of passion to different schools. The overall app quality could be different between apps even from the same person. One school may have already reached their target number of super-math-geniuses/great-debaters/multicultural-bridgers (whatever your strengths are) while another hasn’t yet.</p>
<p>Reading a lot of essays on this forum also helped a lot.</p>
<p>Over 50% of essays are too difficult and complex to read.
At least 30% say bad or negative things about the applicant.
At least 25% are just not relevant. In other words they don’t hurt the applicant but they don’t show qualities universities are looking for in students.
Every so often tho, there is a good essay that makes the writer come of as a likable human being."</p>
<p>Really great analysis, bomerr. I am enjoying your critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>I have to say, bomerr, I am impressed with your tenacity, resilience, and efforts in the face of failure/rejection. I think these are just the traits that top/all schools are looking for.</p>
<p>As someone professionally involved with both writing and universities (but not admissions), I find this an interesting analysis. While I don’t know whether the percentages given are correct, I do think the categories make a lot of sense. </p>
<p>The most interesting point to me is the first one, because students sometimes value complexity for its own sake. I sometimes read essays from friends’ kids, and I wonder what admissions people think when reading some of the very dense writings. Personally, I value the essays that show the “likable human being” quality.</p>
I found this interesting because I’ve been thinking about it lately.
Not every student can generate a complex essay.
Of those who can, only a few have the writing ability to pull it off well.
It’s another question entirely whether it works for the admissions committee. I’ve seen people have bad reactions to an otherwise very good piece of writing because it was too complex for them, personally.
I got rejected from Yale SCEA with 2200+ SAT score and 4.0 UW GPA. Yale only rejects about 25-30% of early applicants and defers everyone else, excluding the accepted of course. To put this in perspective, 70-75% of people were better than a 2200+ and 4.0 uw.
I would say for schools like HYPSM, the number of qualified applicants may be as high as 90%. With app fees becoming so expensive and applications becoming so long winded with the amount of essays, not as many people apply to way beyond their reach colleges as you would think. Honestly think about your class and how many people who have no chance are applying to Ivies. My school has 1 in a class of 400. We have 2 others who have a low chance but it’s still possible given their URM status and great writing skills.
It is not necessarily true that they all have better stats than you do. It could be that your extracurricular achievements, essays, recommendations, and/or interview put you in the reject pile by being significantly below whatever threshold they use for baseline qualifications.
“With app fees becoming so expensive and applications becoming so long winded with the amount of essays, not as many people apply to way beyond their reach colleges as you would think”
About a 150% increase to Yale over twelve years. I’m sure Harvard, PTon and Stanford are the same. Similar name-recognition schools aren’t far behind.
I wonder about this too. I do think though that there are kids out there who don’t have a chance of any sort but are still applying. They are totally interested in only the prestige factor and nothing will convince them that they don’t stand a chance. It doesn’t really bother me until almost all of their list are super reaches and they won’t apply to any safeties and they don’t take any sane advise about it. There are a lot of prestige seekers out there. More than you think.
@goingnutsmom forget exactly where I read this, but I remember Dartmouth stating ~80% of applicants are qualified and would succeed at Dartmouth…of course there’s no way to tell where they set the bar for “qualified,” and qualified most certainly isn’t synonymous with competitive.
What an odd freaking conversation. I can’t even be sure who’s being sarcastic.
It doesn’t matter if a college says, say, 80% are “qualified.” When you have 30-40k apps, you aren’t looking for merely able to do the work.
I have long thought only maybe 50% make it past first cut for various reasons. And I suspect it’s decreasing. Someone, some hs kid challenged me on this, but I know how many get to 2nd review, where I work.
Ime, few essays are “complex” or too difficult to read. Few. But many are just not meaningful to a college admissions review, no matter what others on CC think. And you are forgetting the impact of the activities and the supp questions.
And, CA has put their criteria for their holistic review out there. A tale of challenges faced IS important to at least UCB and UCLA. It is not a given that the single digit schools are looking for what UC does.
This would be true for almost any highly selective college, except perhaps one with a super-rigorous core curriculum (e.g. Caltech, Harvey Mudd), since the limitation of the size of the frosh class requires admission to be far more selective than just admitting “those who can do the work”.
The opposite would be the case at the least selective colleges. Due to a need to fill the frosh class, or because of a mission to give everyone a chance, the admissions bar is low enough that it can admit many students who (from the viewpoint of the admissions office) have a low (although non-zero) chance of succeeding.
Hence graduation rates usually correlate well to admissions selectivity.