Essays can easily separate one applicant from another while their grades and test scores are not that distinguishable. It’s hard to remember one kid has 3.92 GPA and 10 APs versus another has 3.95 and 11, but it’s easy to remember one is an extrovert and fun while the other an introvert and somewhat less fun. So, good essays are not necessarily well written but the attractive person shown in the writing, I think. It’s unfair to introverts.
Some introverts can write.
I don’t think essays are unfair to introverts at all. Many terrific writers are introverts.
Essays matter – they provide provide a window into the person behind the transcript, test scores, and ECs. A good essay can tie everything together, give an adcom something to hang his/her hat on, and provide a way to remember a student when there’s a stack of applications three feet high. The most successful essays are genuine and can be summed up in a few words (e.g., “the Costco kid;” “the one who was living in a car;” “the girl with the peanut butter.”)
Yes, the process can seem random – and sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason to some of the rejections or admits. But, given a similar demographic, and controlling for “hooks,” when one high stats kid gets rejected from all of his/her top choices and a second, equally high stats kid sweeps and gets into HYPS, maybe it’s not so random after all.
Essays matter. Teacher recs and counselor recs matter. They are what distinguishes among equally qualified students.
And the fact that these tend to be non-observable and non-comparable to the applicant pool as a whole by those outside the college’s admission office means that these will be seen by applicants as having an apparently randomizing effect on the admission process, even though the actual randomness is much lower.
@winterkomt I agree with that. We had a big debate here within our family about Red states this year and ended up only applying to two in the more liberal parts of NC (which I at least view as more of a swing state going forward given the recent voting rights decision) while rejecting schools in more conservative areas.
“Essays matter – they provide provide a window into the person behind the transcript, test scores, and ECs. A good essay can tie everything together, give an adcom something to hang his/her hat on, and provide a way to remember a student when there’s a stack of applications three feet high.”
I’m not so sure that I buy the “window into the person” nonsense, but I do think that essays can make a few kids (but not the majority) stand out. Still, though, essays are an entirely subjective way for schools to pick among the top students. As I have mentioned before, the majority of high-stat kids are sending in good or better essays.
The bigger problem (and one that we don’t have here in the UK) is that the SATs/ACTs and other objective measures (such as AP exams) are not rigorous enough to differentiate among the top students. Therefore, the soft factors such as essays, ECs and charity work become a subjective mechanism for the schools to pick the winning 25% or so students among the top candidates.
@VANDEMORY1342 "Take Vanderbilt or Duke for example, these places emphasize the party and play atmosphere and know students that truly want to go will have inclinations toward that type of atmosphere. "
I’m not sure I agree with this. I think that Vandy and Duke are looking first for kids with as high SAT/ACT scores as possible. I think that work hard/play hard would come lower on the list!
Agreed, when your child is getting perfect scores on SATs, SAT subject tests, and GPA - you know the test ceiling is too low and there won’t be enough differentiation among top students. I know in many places outside the US getting 100% is impossible and an A is getting 70% or 80% leaving plenty of headroom for those who truly excel.
@londondad - Winning and losing are an interesting way to describe the outcomes.
The SAT doesn’t differentiate students because everyone would take the ACT. High schools don’t grade on a curve because parents would remove the administration. EC’s, charity work, recommendations and the essays have the potential to be more honest differentiation (please avoid the temptation to tell me that parents do all of it…), with an interview / personal meetings being the only truly honest interaction that schools can use to judge.
Hooks provide something schools want…different background, experiences, and perspectives. That’s worth a few points in the SAT average to the highly competitive schools, and they alone have the right to decide who they want to associate with.
If your child is statistically at or above the median for a school, went on an interview, and didn’t get accepted…maybe it wasn’t the fact that the SAT only went to 1600? Selective college admissions is a sellers market, and they can accept offers of attendance for whatever reason they choose. That’s not new this year, only the size of the competition has changed creating more and more losers every year. A 4.0 and a 1600 can’t possibly be a loser, so we’ll spend hours dissecting the game to identify its flaws. Maybe it’s working just fine…but as the number of losers grow the pressure to explain increases.
@EyeVeee, I agree that it’s working fine in an ever increasing level of competition. My DD’s profiled well with 35 ACT, multiple 750-800 SAT 2’s, 3.85 UW / 4.2 W GPA with 6/8 AP’s each, good EC’s, but they didn’t have perfect scores, perfect grades, extraordinary EC’s, and no hooks so the results made sense - 1 WL and 7 Denials at Ivies and top-5 LAC’s. That said they got accepted to every other top 7-25 LAC and will be attending #12 Hamilton. While incredibly high standards are in place now, it seems like their results were right, save a lottery pick win.
@m139pl Our high school has some classes (mostly in the honors and AP sciences) where 80 percent is an A. Very, very few kids end up with above 90 in those classes. They are supposed to be challenging and are set up to really prepare the kids for college work. I think adcoms who work with high schools in IL know that the kids from our high school with a little lower GPA compete well with some perfect GPAs from other schools. Scary, though, when I see some kids’ GPAs on CC.
To return to the thread’s original question, the most glaring thing our high school has seen more recently are kids not getting into their “match” schools seemingly because they didn’t show enough interest and the colleges are protecting yield. So, what’s a student to do? I guess he can still shoot for the moon with reaches but then be very methodical in choosing matches and show interest for sure. Safeties seem to remain safeties for most kids here.
@homerdog, agree as in our DD’s case they demonstrated interest, in multiple ways, in every school they applied to that tracked same - my assumption is that this is why they weren’t victims of yield protection.
@londondad : I have judged essay writing elements of Academic Olympics competitions where all of the participants have great grades and great test scores, and I have taught a 10-week English class to seniors where over half the class was headed to an Ivy League university or a close equivalent, and I can absolutely assure you that “the majority of high stats kids” are not “sending in good or better essays.” The majority of high stats kids are sending in serviceable essays.
It’s not just a question of topic, style, and grammar, either. First and foremost, it’s a question of ideas. Does the writer have something interesting to say that can’t be inferred from everything else, and that isn’t a cliche once you know the situation? Does the essay actually tell you something important about the writer? Some people – but not very many – are comfortable with the personal-essay format, and know extract what is interesting from very mundane situations. Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, or Karl-Ove Knausgard would have little trouble getting into a good college. Some people actually have a unique take on standard polemics, and can make it snap, crackle, and pop, like William F. Buckley. A very few can do personal-experience humor in an original way. And some can write about things wholly other than themselves, and still communicate tons about their personality and way of looking at the world. Gershom Scholem would probably get into college, too.
If there’s no real idea, and no connection to the writer’s personality, then all the style, structure, syntax, vocabulary, and grammar in the world won’t make the essay anything other than mediocre and a chore to read.
@PurpleTitan I used extrovert vs introvert as an example what essays reveal (assuming the writing itself is fine). A few cases this year show that being an introvert hurts their chances.
I do think most serious applicants write well but they may be the kind of students the target school doesn’t want or they didn’t write in a way that’s attractive to the school. So, fit is important and that requires applicants know themselves and the target school very very well.
@eiholi: I wouldn’t interpolate from anecdotes.
If we’re going to do that, there was one (ORM) guy from my HS class who went to Harvard. He was a quiet deep thinker type with a subtle sense of humor. Not flashy at all if you met him in person. But if you read the stuff he wrote, you would be blown away.
If you’re going to differentiate between red and blue, nearly all college towns and almost all LAC campuses (with the possible exception of W&L) are almost uniformly liberal.
BTW, I wouldn’t assume that AP scores (and A-Level marks) don’t matter. I believe they do at least at some places.
@JHS - agree 100%. People read their children’s essays in awe of their writing skills, but it’s based on a comparison to their own ability. When others (teachers, counselors, advisors) comment on the writing ability of a child, it’s an indication of potential.
Did you read the four essays printed in the NYTimes this past weekend? There may be a thread on this…but wondering what you thought?
I completely agree that AP scores and A-level marks matter. Not one score, but a consistent record. A kid who took 7 APs and got all 5s will have an advantage over a kid who took 10 APs and got 4 5s, 4 4s, and two 3s.
@PurpleTitan, prospective students at Kenyon specifically mentioned the proliferation of Trump/Pence signs in the surrounding area as a factor; I assume Grinnell fell victim to the same dynamic.
Our GC told us that you don’t report AP scores on your apps. They are only used once you are accepted and if you want to use them for credit. Do kids just put them in some other place on the app as an “over and above” sort of thing?