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The whole point of the application is to try to impress them as a lot of these schools will have many apps that look nearly the same.
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<p>That is true, to an extent. I think the high school and college GPAs, and SAT act as 'cut-off' mechanism. Once you surpass those minimum-standards, you need to demonstrate why the university to which you are applying would be perfect for you. This can be accomplished by both telling the university why you need them (your reasons), and telling the university why they should want you, which is the equivalent of describing yourself. I had two Georgetown essays: one entirely about me, and the other entirely about why I need to transfer to Georgetown.</p>