<p>Will average essays kill my chances?</p>
<p>Applying to top schools.
Have great ECs, awards and recs, and my SAT scores are basically on par, but I would rate my Commonapp essay maybe 7.5/10 and my supplement for Wharton a 4/10 and for Cornell/Harvard/Yale a 6/10.</p>
<p>Great ECs, awards and rec, and ‘on par’ SAT scores are shared by more than half the applicants. The schools you speak of such as Yale and Harvard say each year at least 75% of the people who apply are capable of taking the workload, and could academically succeed, however they’re looking for specific people so if anything the essays, your voice, are the most important part of the application.</p>
<p>Why not make the essays 10/10? Get other people to critique and give suggestions on how to improve. The essays are the easiest part of the application to improve upon because you don’t need a time turner: you just need to put some time in. I recommend you continue trying to improve them until deadline!</p>
<p>To answer your question, though, it depends on the college and the rest of your app. If the rest of your app is boring (high SATs, high grades, lots of unoriginal ECs) and you’re going to a top college, you need an awesome, unique essay. If you wrote a novel, then that’s your “hook.” Safeties/matches you can slack on with the essays. And colleges weight their essays differently; you can look up specifically online.</p>
<p>For top schools the essays are pretty huge. I would second everything lonelywayfarer said; essays are an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from the rest of the applicant pool.</p>