I beg to differ. My kids couldn’t write an SAT essay for beans. They just aren’t fast writers and their immediate reaction to those questions is a deer in the headlights look. They are fine with research papers - and they did fine with AP type essays.</p>
<p>I agree that picking your teacher recommendations strategically is good. I think my older son could have done better there. My younger son picked a math teacher for one recommendation even though it wasn’t his best grade. He adored the teacher and he knew that the teacher would be very fair. The teacher said that while he didn’t always get the best grades on tests, he felt our kid understood the math better than most of the students in the class. Because he had trouble memorizing formulas he often lost time figuring them out again from first principles.</p>
<p>I do think for very selective colleges, that essays, recs, and extracurriculars come to the forefront of the decision process because most applicants have the requisite stats to be admitted and these other pieces are what sets them apart. It is true that there is not an entirely even playing field with recs in terms of who writes them, though students should provide lots to their rec writers to enable them to write effective recs on their behalf. Many don’t do that step. It is true that the essays are hard for many students to write as they have to talk about themselves which is not the kind of typical writing assignments they had in high school. </p>
<p>My kids went to a rural public school where only 2/3’s of graduates attend college. I was able to read my kids’ recs including the GC’s report. They were very personalized and the GC knew my kids very well. I think their recs helped. There was just one case of an optional/supplementary rec that D2 asked the music department head to write that was a generic rec she used for all students it seemed (she even had the wrong name in parts of the rec!!) and my D had had her for six years in many capacities and my D was truly a standout in this area, with many achievements that were very very rare at this school in her field. Luckily we saw it and my D had solicited 3 optional supplementary recs and didn’t use this one. It does happen. But her other recs were very personalized. </p>
<p>I happen to think my kids wrote many great essays and they are good writers in the first place, and spent a lot of time on these. I think some kids do not spend adequate time on these and/or do not write well at all. In my line of work, I see a wide range of writing ability and the essays reveal a lot, not only about the person, but about their ability to express themselves.</p>
Perhaps applying ED also helped your kids. Northwestern accepted 39% of ED applicants last year, as opposed to 29% RD. (Also, for NW, legacy status is “considered.”) As far as your dd’s school (Wellesley), ED applicants had a 59% ED acceptance rate, as opposed to a 35% RD acceptance rate.</p>
<p>soozie, we had the same experience with the orchestra teacher. My son was asked to get two teachers to write letters that were given to the GC to use. The letter was so generic and boring more about the program than my son. We laughed and said “Well we know who you aren’t asking for a recommendation next fall!” His history teacher had a long list of questions for every kid he wrote a recommendation for. I can’t remember all the questions, but in addition to wanting to be reminded for their final grade and their AP exam score, they had to make a copy of their favorite research paper and write a paragraph about what their favorite part of the course was, and write another paragraph about what they were thinking about studying in college and why. While my son didn’t see the recommendation, I feel reasonably confident it contained details.</p>
<p>Hi mathmom, I am no way an expert. I just follow the college admission of the top universities out of curiosity. I read and find Tufts has applied Dr. Sternberg’s Kaleidoscope system with essay questions which are based on a theory of leadership called WICS, which stands for wisdom, intelligence, creativity, synthesized. I hope when applying this methodology they find traits on student essay reflecting these qualities, which might have little to do with an in-class English essay normally expected and required
My 2 cents :)</p>
<p>In response to the question/title of the thread: I do believe that application essays are useful. (I have no particular expertise, just a mom of a college freshman, and a former teacher at an alternative high school where few graduates were planning to attend college at all.)</p>
<p>In my opinion, essays are one piece of the puzzle and can offer insight into the applicant. They are no more or less “fair” than any other part of the application process. I also don’t believe that intelligent, motivated students will find it nearly impossible to write a first person essay in their own voice, as the author of the article suggests.</p>
<p>My son wrote an essay (used in various forms for different applications) about one of his science fair projects. No one else could have written this essay. Although I offered suggestions, I couldn’t have written it for him in a million years. I believe it revealed much about him as a person and a student and did convey his “voice,” even though writing is not his forte. It showed something about him, as did his tests scores, his teacher recs, his curriculum, his list of ECs, etc. That’s the point, right?</p>