Just out of curiosity, let’s say I’m somewhat unqualified for a university I’m applying to. The grades are there, the scores are fairly decent, but nothing the college hasn’t seen before. The extracurriculars are mediocre to okay. It’s a high probability that I won’t get in.
Would an amazing essay + supplement essays be enough to make it into the accepted pile?
If we’re talking about the average student a HYPS-university expects (so all/mostly As, 2200+ SAT, 700+ SATII) plus the okay ECs, then essays would likely have an important impact on whether one would be admitted or not. HYPS-type schools use academics as a benchmark, and use the essays/short answers as a way to determine whether the student’s personality can succeed at their school.
They’re not only admitting a person; they’re admitting a part of an entire class, so they keep that in mind as they consider applications, and essays are one of the only ways they can really see the person behind the statistics.
As I’ve said before, schools like that receive a stack of applications that all look alike: super students, great grades, great EC’s and volunteer work, etc, etc. Unlike most colleges whose applications form some sort of a bell curve, MOST of the applicants to elites are WAYY skewed towards the top end. So, how do they tell one student from another and start to distinguish between them? You guessed it: letters of recommendation and essays. A blah essay might just doom you, when in many universities, it wouldn’t hurt you as much.