<p>On an Ivy League type admissions board I heard many interesting stories of some people getting into schools I thought they'd never get into </p>
<p>How much of a difference does a stellar essay make on a college resume that already has grades and SAT scores that aren't that great as a typical Ivy league applicant?</p>
<p>I have no experience or expertise to say that I am right but my opinion is: significantly but depends on the school. For Harvard, Chicago, Cornell - they def can get you in. Schools are known to treat subjective part of the application better. However usually good/creative essay writers are capable to get 2200+ on SATs. If you look at liberal arts colleges or research universities like NYU who are known to be more Academic - your essay has a lower weight. Some schools have a policy not even to waste time reading an essay if you are lets say below 1700 on sats. It really varies. However, I believe that with an essay you can win the heart of an admission officer :)</p>
<p>I completely agree - high end schools usually must have a lot of top SAT applicants (above 2300) and the only way to differentiate between them would be the essay section. </p>
<p>I also believe that the essay is a large contributing factor to an acceptance in any reach university.</p>
<p>I can tell you a horribly crappy essay won’t do you any good.</p>
<p>Well essays aren’t really reliable though. I’ve heard of a lot of people who paid a professional college advisor to write their essays… </p>
<p>I mean people say that AO’s can catch that but honestly I don’t think they should put a huge weight on essays.</p>
<p>Your essays, letters of rec., & EC’s are used to determine the the type of person you are. I heard an adcom from the University of Rochester say that if he read one more essay about “scoring the winning goal” he was going to throw up! WHAT you chose to write about says a lot about your level of maturity, etc.</p>
<p>Essays can definitely make or break you. Given the excess of qualified applicants, the readers are looking for something to latch onto you with. The essay and teacher recs are the few items that truly are unique to you. Sure, a moving and gripping essay won’t make up for a 3.4GPA or a 1800 SAT, but without essays, why should they admit you over similarly scoring or GPA applicants? </p>
<p>Admissions is an art, not a science. This is the subjective side of things.</p>
<p>Read here
<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html[/url]”>http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html</a></p>
<p>If your stats are bad it can’t get you in. But if your stats are okay to decent, then your essay can get you in.</p>
<p>Disagree slightly with csdad. It’s not as important the topic as the way you go about presenting it. The kind of voice you use, the structure of the essay, and so on. Something is only cliche if you make it sound cliche.</p>
<p>What would you mean by voice? Do you mean how honest you are, how introspective, how much ‘force’ of personality and determination you’re able to project? Or something else?</p>
<p>voice? </p>
<p>Does it sound contrived (many college essays seem this way)? Or is it sincere. Does it try to convince the reader of the writer’s stellar qualities? Or does it try to open a window into the writer’s worldview?</p>
<p>Read some of the essays out there. Often, you just shake your head: another 17 year old trying to sound important. Few are actually interesting. Read through the UVA Essays tutorial</p>
<p>for what it’s worth, three individuals from the admissions group at one particular school at Cornell (I have no reason to believe that it’s significatly different at the other schools) read each essay a candidate submits. A fourth person is sometimes brought in. For the ones who make the cut, the essays are passed on to 3-4 professors in the school. And 90% of what they see is crap, so make it good. The problem is most students spend about 75% of the essay on explaining useless information “I did this, the I did that, then somebody did this, so I did that” instead of stuff the adcoms actually care about “and here is how XYZ affected me”.</p>
<p>impet, do you happen to know the names of the companies they hired? As for the essay thing, yes an essay can make or break you. The important thing is to catch the heart of the admissions officer so that they will fight to bring you into the school (even if you do have a 3.4 gpa and applying to an ivy, it still can be done). My cousin is proof of that. Of course I’m talking about Cornell and Dartmouth which are very good schools. They look more at the other things over your grades. I’m praying that would be the situation with me and Cornell.</p>