nikon50bigma

he yGuys,
Do eassy realy play a big role into college admissions?
My school has told me that colleges use the essays and a way of kinda screening the person or psychologicaly screen the perons.
What is the real truth?

chinnychinchang

I heard it's more of a writing sample for the college, and that 90% of them do not make a difference in decision, 5% hurt the applicant, and 5% actually help the applicant. I'm not sure where I read that, I think it was off a UVA site.

drusba

It varies. At many colleges the essay is of minor to no importance except that it can take on importance for borderline candidates. Also at many, a good essay won't make any real difference for an otherwise qualified candidate but a really bad one can sink a top candidate. Moreover, there may be differences even among the colleges at a university and some may consider it important for all, example: UIUC: generally you can consider the above two rules to apply except that for school of business all applicants should consider their essay to be very important.

fhg

It also seems like essays are much more significant at smaller LACs. I know that at Barnard, where I applied ED, they are very important (the words of an alum who used to work in the admissions office).

hookandline

I'm with fhg...at Kenyon, the essays are extremely important. I heard from a person on the admissions committee that they have accepted people solely based on their essays.

caltech27

90% of UVA applicants' essays don't make a difference in admission? I highly doubt that.
Essays, along with ECs, play a major role in the high-tier colleges where most students' stats (SATs, GPA, class rigor) are high, and therefore usually cannot be used to narrow the admissions pool.

Ephemeral2

I hope they mean a lot.. I like mine.
But yeah, everything I've heard points to them being very important, though I think their significance is exaggerated.

Zenbadabing

Chinnychinchang, did you pull that statistic out of your ***? 90% of essays don't make a difference? Probably won't if you're talking about community colleges, but i highly doubt those are the colleges OP is referring to. The only way for adcoms to evaluate an applicant aside from just the numbers is the essay. Your essay is your voice-and if its boring, then your numbers won't save you. Competitive colleges have a holistic approach to admissions, meaning they want the whole package. Everything is important, thus percentages are pretty much irrelevant.

And nikon, there is no TRUTH. Do you think your counselor is lieing to you? Is the admissions officer suppose to call you up and tell you whats up? Just be honest, and write the best essay you've ever written in your life. Good luck.

SJTH

The importance of the essay is to tell the school something more about YOU. The essay is a chance to convey something over and above the "just the facts" nature of identical applications. You obviously know that YOU can't be summed up by a test score or GPA, so the essay is a chance to convey your humor, values, interests etc. to the admissions committee, in order to distinguish YOU from the pack. Essays are VERY important, especially to liberal arts schools.

eatsalot

i read this statistic as well. what s/he was trying to say was that 90% of the time, the essays don't do anything for the applicant: they just solidify what the rest of the application has already shown the admissions officer about that person's strengths, weaknesses, etc. 5% of the time, it helps the applicant in the eyes of the reader, and the other 5% of the time, it hurts the applicant.

ohcollege1102

I've actually seen that statistic too.

DRMAN54

yeah so have I but why is it i cant remember where?!

i think i heard it in a college guidance class they give at my school...

lolilaughed

I've heard that statistic but never believed it...don't adcoms all recommend a powerful essay?