On the commonapp, there appears a question concerning any additional information you might want to add, with no restrictions. What is your take on something like this?:
They say when you write college essays and fill out the numerous short answer questions on college application forms, you are trying to sell yourself. But how can an admissions officer really see what kind of prospective student they are looking at? Grades, essays, standardized test scores? One must also take into account how much time the prospective student spent on his/her application, grades or studying for standardized tests.
As a note, I spent absolutely no time studying for the SAT reasoning tests and scored an 1180 and 1230, respectively. However, without studying, I saw a 40 point decrease in verbal and a 90 point increase in math. How many countless stories have you heard of about students scoring well on the SATs and then going on to flunk out of college? In this instance, without studying I grabbed myself a best of 1270 composite. With intense studying and prep classes, let’s say student B receives a 1470. Would you not agree that had we both not taken any prep classes and devoted a moderate amount of time to studying that we could conceivably match a composite of 1370?
How about grades? Every teacher grades on a different scale and that leaves room for great fluctuation in overall grades. Some teachers offer extra credit, offer extra points for test corrections, hand out easier tests, assign easier projects, grade on curves and some don’t. An “A” on one scale could very well be equivalent to a “B-” on another. Is there any way to distinguish such problems? If you are looking to look at class rank, there could be a problem because then the factor of “underachievers” and “overachievers” plays a role.
Now we concern ourselves with essays. It’s pretty simple, an essay is what it is, poor or brilliant, however, could one have been rushed while the other quietly shelved for two years? Well then, you’d ask, “It’s simple, the student with the most outstanding essay is obviously a better writer, if not, then a well-prepared student.” That’s where college interests come into play, maybe the essay wasn’t so favorable because the student thought it be better if he/she devote more time to another essay inparticular. Of course, colleges don’t want to hear that they are second or third choices, but no matter what the choice, if a student so chooses to attend a “second-choice” university, will he/she really change the “effort lever?” Probably not, he/she will strive to do their best in whatever environment they find themselves in.