123college456

i think not
i applied to top schools like duke, mit and ucb and got rejected
(btw i am an international and asked for aid at duke and applied to undeclared engg at ucb)
as these schools are dream schools, i worked really hard on my essays to utmost perfection.
it was unique and insightful and i liked it and showed it some people and they said it was awesome
but then my rejection indicates that essays aren't that inmportant??

btw i have normal stats(2230 sat 1 and 1560 sat 2 and 4.3 W gpa, decent ec's)

Bowler Hat

Don't forget that your situation applies to all applicants. Almost everyone's college application essay is the best they've ever written.

Anon_Person_1

yeah, everyone has their best essay...sorry man

diffy q

The "awesomeness" of your essay is all subjective. My friend felt that he wrote the perfect essay for MIT, but I felt it was very dull. He didn't get in.

Your international status also hurts you. You also haven't mentioned what your recommendation letters were like (doesn't apply to Berkeley, I know). For top schools like the ones you listed, EVERYTHING is important. Just because you didn't get in doesn't mean that essays aren't important.

T26E4

123college456: You're making some big assumptions here. How do you know that your essays weren't considered positively or negatively? You don't. An argument can be made that your essays may be the thread that ties all the rejections together. The schools you mentioned evaluate holistically and your personal statements do matter quite a bit. Along with your metrics and teacher recs, a picture of you is formed. If that image is favorable in the adcoms' mind, then you advance in the process.

While I sympathize with you, your statement goes against what the adcoms themselves state time and time again. Best of luck to you wherever you attend.

brownflavors

I hope you were being facetious.

1. Your essays were not perfect; no essays are perfect.
2. Logic -- you didn't get in and your essays were good. So what? There are other factors in the process. You assume the essays have to be "everything" besides your numbers. What about your ECs, your passion, your demonstrated interest? Were your recs good? There are many other things...

lulupony

remember that you're an international asking for aid, that means a lot.
that's literally a 15% drop in admittance rate.
take Duke for example, their rate is around 16%
for their international student, it'd probably be around 5-6%, since they're at a record number this year or something
for international w/ aid, well, it'd be around 2-3%.
and remember, this percentage is out of the pool of the same type of applicants
that means that 97-98% of the internationals asking for aid don't get in. (i was one of them)

the odds are all against you man.
also remember that there always will be ppl better than you.
your stats are rather unimpressive for schools like MIT, Duke, and Berkeley.

From personal experience, i do believe essays are very important, esp when it comes to scholarship selection.
for USC, there are plenty w/ sat scores and ranks above me.
yet my essay was very unique and sprinkled w/ light humor (i wrote about farting in english class)
so i got their full scholarship as opposed to another candidate w/ higher scores, but rather a generic essay.
essays are the display of your personality, what makes you unique.
when the odds are not against you, and you have what it takes to get in.
it's the essay that determines whether they want you or not.
b/c they want individuals, not just stats for their upcoming class.

i hope this helped, and good luck on your future endeavors.

hpg90

OP, your essays may not have been as good as you think they were. As someone who has read and edited a fair number of essays on this site, a really good essay is pretty hard to find.

asdfjkl1

I'm not going to bash the poster like others here. Anyways, I believe that the essay is quite important. In terms of stats, I shouldn't have gotten into the schools I got into. But my essays showed something that obviously changed their decision from maybe to yes. You'll never know what it was. But, your essay can definitely help you.

Kimchee

Your application essay is VERY IMPORTANT (aside from gpa, extracurricular activities, etc). My gpa was below 3.5 but I got into UCI, UCSD, UCLA...still waiting for UCB but my point to you is this: when they look through your application, they only know a few things about you. What of your personality? Your personal experiences? What have you got to share that would make you a worthy student on their campus? I have heard countless people with very high grade point averages (4.2, 3.8, 3.6 and so on) get rejected and they were very active members on their school campuses. So what's the problem? What is it that the colleges are looking for? Your personal statements is your opportunity to show them who you are as a person, what you have achieved as a personal goal (not entirely academic because they can see that through the other aspects of your application), and what you have learned from the experiences that you went through. I'm sure everyone who applies to any colleges, is worthy. But admissions don't know who you are. They would like to at least know the students who are going to be coming to their campus, not just anyone who has good grades or is the most active or anything.

p.s. if you got rejected, don't be discouraged. I'm sure there are plenty of great schools out there that will accept you.

lethargytm

Some schools value essays above all else. aka UVA. Got in with a 3.4 GPA, awsome EC and volunteer, 2200 SAT, all above 720 SAT II scored, and sets of sick essays. I showed it to my ap lit/lang teacher and she gave me bonus points cause she thought it was amazing. It also could be that I had a c in that class because I didnt care about my grades senior year.

Rosh420

I think so... my academic merits are subpar at best, but I wrote 2 very moving essays and got likely letters from 3 of the 6 colleges I got accepted to (Duke, UPenn, Washington and Lee).. and I was also accepted to Harvard... so.. yeah, they're very important.

Russkiy_Bear

Essay are VERY important. Second most important thing after grades.

SkyHigh

Yes, period.