The proverbial "killer essay"

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - GENERAL
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<p>Just how much power does the “killer essay” wield in the UC admissions process? </p>

<p>My dd aspires to upper-tier UC’s, but only has the stats for the middle tiers…(3.5 gpa, 1910 SAT, awesome extracurriculars, multiple leadership positions, over 200 hours community service)…and then she pulled a tremendous essay out of seemingly nowhere. I was floored, because although she is a good writer, she has been in total college application process freak out mode.</p>

<p>DH, who is an English teacher and very critical, actually teared up a bit because he was so proud :)</p>

<p>So, if your kid is, just hypothetically speaking, within 500 points or so of the “cut-off” for UCSD, can the “killer essay” truly tip the scales and cause an app to be put in the “admit” file?</p>

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<p>It might not have much of an effect on UCSD because they have their methodical point system for calculating admissions and have mentioned that essays will only be skimmed to see if points can be added into their categories, but it could potentially help at Berkeley or LA since they don't have that much of a concrete definition of admission. In the LA class of '11 there's a person who seems to have gotten in with a 2.9 UC GPA (she wasn't an URM), and there's been more than one story about someone who got into Berkeley with sub-par scores.</p>