I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking a lot about it lately. I feel like with the direction college admissions are headed, there’ll soon be a generation of students whose personalities are almost curated for elite institutions? It makes me feel a little helpless, and I guess writing all these silly little essays has made my own words feel like they’ve lost meaning a bit.
9 Likes
There are probably aspects of applying to “elite” universities that are artificial.
However, there are a lot of universities where you can get a very good education. Academically strong students who are also responsible people will get accepted to many very good universities. They might not be the schools that US News or some other magazine ranks in the top 20, but who cares? Hiring managers will hire strong graduates from a wide range of universities.
My recommendation is that you be authentic, be yourself, make sure that you apply to safeties, keep your budget in mind, look for a good fit, and do not worry about it. Silly people will do silly things. You be you, be responsible, treat people fairly, keep ahead in your work, and it will work out.
18 Likes
For certain schools, yes. And I think once you get to some of those schools, it shows. However, my kids threw prestige out the window (S23 had the stats for “prestige”, D22 did not) when crafting their lists, concentrated on “fit”, the strength of the department that housed their major (in their own opinion and not based on any kind of rankings), career outcomes and what their experience would look like. They both ended up at schools that were perfect for them. The process looked very different when they went in with confidence in their choices and realized that the schools they loved were all safeties or likelies for them. They both ended up at their 1st choice schools, didn’t sweat the process and both feel like they can’t imagine themselves anywhere else.
14 Likes
There is a sense of fakeness about the whole “holistic” aspect. The essays, especially the “why us” are useless. Everyone is applying to 10+ schools and the schools know that. Everyone embellished the ECs because the others do and you don’t want to appear weak.
5 Likes
For some schools and programs, the “why us” essays are actually quite important and help determine fit and predict yield.
Source?
7 Likes
The elite are elitist by definition - they will be extremely selective and their decisions will not always make sense to the outsiders.However, savvy students will make a list that includes targets and safeties and be covered - it’s a life lesson. I think that heavily “curated” application personalities can probably be sniffed out by the AO’s fairly easily.
7 Likes
My two cents is it is understandable it would feel this way if in fact you are in the sort of secondary school where most of the kids with top grades are applying to the same few schools, many have been planning to do that for years, and they (and their parents) have long had the mindset it is important for them to do whatever it takes to get admitted to one of those schools.
However, notwithstanding how it may sometimes appear in certain circles, that in fact is not what is happening in every secondary school, and with every kid who has top grades.
And even if you do go to one of those secondary schools, you do not have to get sucked into what I call the college admissions Hunger Games. You can think much more broadly about what sorts of colleges might actually be great fits for you. You can also study and reflect on what they seem to be saying about what they are looking for. And you can come up with a list of colleges where they would be good for you, and you sincerely believe that you–the real you–would be good for them.
If you do that, then you can write essentially honest applications. You already did the work to figure out that the real you is a good match for them, and now you just have to make that case as clearly as you can in your applications. But you are not trying to trick them, you are really just trying to help them see the truth.
Again, I promise you a lot of kids actually do it this way. In fact, there is a lot of help available for kids who want to do it that way right here. And that may not entirely eliminate the stress of applying to college, but it can make it feel a lot more authentic.
4 Likes
Say an applicant is applying to 10 schools and all 10 have a “why us” essay. The applicant essentially repackages the same essay but, as has been told by their admission consultant, “researches” each school and inserts a blurb about some specific professor, class, etc. that they like there. How is this essay useful to any school and doesn’t it force the applicant to be dishonest by saying this is definitely THE school for them but saying it to 10 different schools?
1 Like
You can genuinely and sincerely like 10 different schools and feel like you’d be happy at all of them - sometimes for different reasons, sometimes for similar reasons. That doesn’t make the applicant dishonest. I have several friends - I love them all and enjoy spending time with them all. On their birthdays, I write them cards telling them that. Just because I do this for multiple people doesn’t make me dishonest as I have the capacity to like more than one person and consider more than one person a good friend with whom I am compatible. The same is true for colleges - you could certainly consider multiple schools an excellent potential fit and explain why in each “why us?” essay. And the schools themselves understand that.
17 Likes
So in our feederish HS, a list of 10 schools would likely break down into something like 2 Likelies, 3-5 Targets, and 3-5 Reaches.
For each of those categories, the kid will probably have started off considering at least dozens of possible options. And then the colleges they end up choosing will often have different most-frequent competitors. Certainly if they are notably different in terms of selectivity, but often that list could include colleges in different regions or settings, colleges of different sizes, colleges of different format or focus, and so on.
So if you view the “why us” question as always implicitly “why us (and not our usual competitors),” then it may well vary some in detail between at least some of the different colleges on their list.
And of course some may be similar, but I think that is OK. Colleges understand there are typically going to be other colleges that are going to be strong competitors for their non-binding admits. Indeed, even many quite selective colleges still have RD yields well under 50%, sometimes under 33% or 25% or 20%, suggesting they are prepared to fight it out with multiple other colleges.
But I think colleges with “Why us?” essays understandably want some indications that:
(A) This applicant truly has thought through why they are applying to this college in particular, as opposed to any of many dozens of other possible colleges (note this applies even to binding applications), and the reasoning they came up with is in fact consistent with the college’s own self-perception and values; and
(B) If they give a non-binding offer to this applicant, they will at least have some reasonable chance of yielding that applicant, understanding the applicant will likely get some other competitive offers so they might also lose. But at least a shot consistent with their normal RD yields.
As a final note, I don’t think given this framework, the applicant ever has to lie and say a college is #1 on their list, if that is not true. And frankly, these days if you are applying RD, that is almost surely not true anyway, and colleges will know that.
But you can satisfy the goals above without lying in that fashion. Because again, these colleges know they will not yield 100% of their non-binding admits, so they don’t need you to convince them you will 100% go if admitted.
7 Likes
If the applicant’s Why Us essay is essentially the same for the 10 schools, they are certainly missing the entire point of this particular essay. It’s actually the one essay that cannot (or should not) be repackaged.
8 Likes
I don’t disagree that it should not be repackaged. My point is that if it is, with some specifics inserted of course, the schools would never know. Which would make an essay of this kind rather pointless. The personal statement - where the candidate writes about themselves - is much more useful to any school.
1 Like
The applicants don’t have to play the game. There are tons and tons of schools that just require a simple application and sometimes test scores. thousands of students are happy at these schools. You can choose your level of engagement.
13 Likes
It might be worth looking a bit at what the Yale Admissions Podcast said about their version of a Why Us essay, just so you can see how they think. So this is from Episode 6, where they go through their supplementals:
[Mark] All right, so now we’re going to walk through the specific questions and give you some insights, in terms of how the questions wound up this way and what effective responses can look like. So because we have Reed here– and as everyone listening already knows, Reed has such a fabulous radio voice. I was self-conscious about inviting him on, because I just knew everyone would be like, Mark, why are you– why is Reed not doing this? He’s so much better at this so I’m going to put my pride aside, and I’m going to ask that Reed use his perfect radio voice to artistically read the actual text of each one of the questions. So first up is something that we call the why Yale, or why Y?
[Reed] What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? 125 words or fewer– and I also briefly want to say that, though I may have a radio voice, I also have a radio face, so it’s a good thing.
[LAUGHTER]
[Mark] All right, so a deceptively simple question– this kind of question probably appears on just about every college application. This is the, how’d you get here? Why are you applying here? I want to start off with a warning about this question. This is not designed as an exercise to simply profess your love for Yale or for whatever institution you are applying to and the same rules apply here that apply in other parts that we were discussing– particularly, show, don’t tell. I think this is a question that we get a lot of telling. Particularly, people go and they research obscure faculty members or find something that appeared in the student newspaper four years ago, and they’re just–
[Hannah] Right.
[Mark] –telling us, I’ve done my homework here, and I want to tell you that I’ve done that already.
[Hannah] Right. We are not looking for facts about Yale here. We already know those. You don’t need to tell us. We are looking specifically for why you want to come here. What specific experiences have you had that led you to deciding that Yale would be a good place for you? You don’t need to talk about prestige or rankings. Those aren’t good reasons to apply to a school. You don’t need to be just listing the facts. We’re looking as always for a little bit of reflection here.
[Mark] Mm-hmm. And I want to draw your attention to the fact that the question is phrased in the past tense. It is, what has led you to apply? I find that really good responses to this point to specific experiences in a student’s past– hopefully their recent past– that led them to decide, yeah, I want to apply here. Weaker responses, in my experience– they tend to launch right into the future tense and they say, I want to go to Yale because I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do this, and I want to tell you all about how wildly successful I’m going to be here and that’s all interesting as a sort of thought exercise, but it actually doesn’t tell me a whole lot about how you got to this place right now. Keep that in the past tense.
This is from Episode 24, where they go through some of their internal lingo:
HANNAH: Would this be the why Yale essay or YY?
MARK: Very good. So we had the AA and now we have the YY. Little clever insider thing. Explain though YY.
HANNAH: Yeah. So on the application, we give you a little bit of space. It’s not a full length essay, but we ask you what has led you to apply to Yale? And in our office we call this the YY, like letter Y, letter Y.
MARK: So clever.
HANNAH: So clever. And this is really just your opportunity to let us know why you think Yale is a good fit for you and you’re a good fit for Yale. It would be really easy to Google a bunch of things about Yale and be like, oh, well Yale was established in 1701, and it’s part of the Ivy League.
[LAUGHTER]
HANNAH: We know that already. So instead, really reflect on why you feel like Yale is specifically a really good fit for you.
Episode 33, discussing changes to the essays, and what has not changed (the YY did not change):
MARK: And there’s no change this year. Surprise. These are exactly the same as they were last year. There are three different questions that Jackie just gave us. Excellent oration, Jackie. Thank you. But you can really think of them as two pieces. We’re going to ask first for your thoughts about your academic interests and then for your thoughts about Yale.
HANNAH: For both parts of this, our advice is to use the space to tell us about you, not telling us about us, right? We don’t want you to be talking too much about things we already know about Yale or about some cool topic or idea that is interesting but not necessarily connected back to you.
MARK: Right. The space here is limited and I think probably the most common pitfall we see is that people use up an awful lot of space to give us encyclopedia entries on the topic at hand or about Yale. And sometimes you learn some interesting things when reading applications. Like Jackie, I don’t know in your first year if you learned new things about Yale from the things that people had dug really deep into Google research to write their why Yale prompts.
JACKIE: Yeah, apparently Yale has a really strong Baroque program.
HANNAH: Who knew?
MARK: Oh yes. Baroque operas. Operas are standing at Yale. I knew that, but I’m a geek.
HANNAH: Yeah, but we want to hear more about you and why you specifically are excited or feel like you are a good fit for Yale.
MARK: I will say the other common issue that I find in these responses is that students tend to use the future tense gratuitously in these. And they tend to answer them as if they’re going to use the space to give us a wild fantasy about what their perfect life would be like as a Yale student, and what their perfect life would be like as an academic or a professional after I majored in x, y, and z.
And the whole thing is sort of framed in terms of like, at Yale, I will do this and this and this, and then after Yale I will do this. And I’m interested in this topic because it will mean that I can become a path-breaking surgeon who’s going to create a new way to do this amazing medical thing. And I’m sort of imagining that seems like an interesting future person, but it’s not actually telling me all that much and all that directly who the person applying right now is.
HANNAH: And remember, we’re very deliberate with our wording here. We’re asking you to reflect on why you’re drawn to a particular topic or idea in that first question or what has led you to apply to Yale. That’s present tense and past tense.
MARK: Right.
HANNAH: Yeah.
MARK: You will see as we do these questions, we often have a two-part structure to them. There’s like a sentence that leads up to it. Or in the case of the very first one, just asking to select majors several sentences. And then the last sentence is the thing that’s actually giving you the direction for the essay. So like hone in on that why are you drawn to a particular topic idea. You want the focus of your 200-word response to be that why and what has led you to apply to Yale. Focus on that piece, which is past tense.
Episode 35, one of their “mythbusters” episodes:
MARK: All right, so, Hannah, let’s move on to the next set of questions. And these are specifically about the supplemental essays or the Yale-specific questions. So Hannah from New York said, how do you make your supplement stand out, especially the why Yale one? Evelyn, also from New York– New Yorkers are really digging into our Yale-specific questions right now. Evelyn asked, how would you advise a student to create a unique voice in their supplements?
HANNAH: OK, general reminder. Standing out is not the goal. Again, we are reading thousands of these things every year. There’s nothing you can write that is going to shock us. There’s nothing new under the sun, right? So standing out isn’t the goal here. The goal is, again, reflection and sounding like yourself. And having these written pieces of the application be in conversation with all the other pieces of the application in a way that helps us understand who you are, why you’re applying to our school, what would make us excited about bringing you to our school, and all those things.
So with supplements, just as with the Common App essay, reflection is really important. So for that why Yale essay, we’re not looking for a list of things at Yale that excite you. We’re looking for reflection on why certain things about Yale excite you and why you’re drawn to applying to Yale. Those feelings. Again, we want all the feelings.
MARK: All the feels. All the feels. When we say why Yale, think about that specifically in terms of connecting the dots.
Episode 37, another “mythbusters”:
MARK: There was a question that– it just disappeared, but I– and I’ll try to paraphrase it, that was about name-dropping professors in the Why Yale section. Is that– and I think they specifically said, is that cheesy? Like, sort of, would you recommend, sort of, calling out specific Yale professors when you’re saying what in particular has led you to apply to Yale?
MOIRA: It’s so funny that you asked this question, because we actually just had a staff conversation related to this. This is like we’re really taking you inside the admissions office right now. But we had a series of, like, all staff gearing up for reading season training sessions. And I don’t remember what the context was, but the question came up of like, oh, when someone mentions a professor in their why Yale, do you write it down in your notes? Do you make a note of it? And the answer is only if it is telling you something new, or interesting, or important to the student.
So name-dropping by itself is not that interesting because anyone can Google a Yale department and figure out who the professors are. But if you’ve actually done some research and you have a sense of the work this professor is doing and why you’re specifically interested in it, and you want to tell us, that can tell us some new information about you.
MARK: Absolutely.
Pretty interesting. As they say, there is more going on there then perhaps some people realize, right down to the specific way they phrase the question.
And this is slightly reading between the lines, but it sure seems to me like they are well aware of certain commonly-recommended techniques for churning through a lot of Why X? essays. And if they think that is what you did for them, that will not be good for you.
7 Likes
To me, it comes off as manipulative. Guess what we’re thinking. The question says “led” not “lead,” so we want the answer to be in the past tense and not the present or future tense, duh. And whatever you do, don’t mention how famous we are, be cool man! Act like you’re meeting Taylor Swift, but pretend you don’t know that she’s famous, and be really genuine when you do so. This essay is super important, it can make or break you, but remember standing out is not the goal!
6 Likes
Thank you all for the thoughtful responses! I think I am just losing my grip a little bit because of deadlines and all, and going to a relatively affluent high school from a family which has pretty high expectations for me is just laying the pressure on. I guess the main thing is that I know it’s silly to place so much value in these “top” universities, but it’s hard not to anyway? And yeah, the Why Us essays do have me slightly befuddled. I definitely feel more connected to certain schools than others, and I guess writing that essay for the schools I am less interested in makes my words feel very contrived.
On another note, I feel like the admissions process is very much about “selling yourself”, and I guess that has made me a little uncomfortable as I fill them in. I also was wondering how big of a role your ECs really play in your application? My dad signed me up for a college counseling session the other day, and she suggested I apply as a different major than my intended one (engineering) to certain schools to increase my chances of getting in, because my ECs don’t necessarily “back” my major, and that made me feel kind of awful. I don’t think I will do what she suggested, because then I would really just be lying. But I guess I am curious anyway? Sometimes it feels like I’m playing a game where everyone else knows the rules and tricks except me, and sometimes it feels like I’m criticizing a system that I inevitably contribute to…
3 Likes
Hugs to you.
A little perspective- the vast majority of college educated people in the world (and that includes the US) got their degree without having EC’s that “backed up” their major or did any of the other things that feel inauthentic to you.
So you should feel confident in being yourself- the wonderful, not perfect, incredible, not fully formed, interesting human being that you are right now-- and you’ll STILL get to go to college.
Just do your best to move forward- you will feel SO much better this Spring when the process is behind you. Make sure your list isn’t so top-heavy that you don’t have two rock solid “I can get in here even without torturing myself with an essay” choices and the rest is gravy…
7 Likes
It’s probably more important that your transcript backs up your major/interests, rather than your EC’s. Your family want the best for you, but you may have to push back a little and hopefully find a common ground. It’s a game, but you don’t have to lie or pretend to be someone else to play it.
4 Likes
I know it’s really hard to see the forest through the trees right now but I remember last year when I was stressing out about my son’s college apps and he was not.
He told me, “I can only be myself”. I think his biggest concern was going to a school that was not a good fit for him so the only viable option for him was to be himself.
Did he write why us essays for schools he felt less sure about? Of course! Maybe just focus on what you like about these schools to make it feel authentic. Because surely you like something about these schools, otherwise why apply?
You honestly can’t go wrong with being authentic. It’s your best bet to land at a school that is a good fit.
8 Likes
FWIW, my daughter refused to be anything but herself.
She only applied for her intended major, and didn’t indicate a second choice anywhere. She said she’d rather go to a lower ranked schools for the major she wanted than a higher ranked schools for something else (and many schools make it difficult to “back door” into another major and make it impossible to change anyway).
She didn’t say anything in the “why us” essays that wasn’t 100% true for her. There was only one school that she told/showed that they were her favorite. The others she found things on her visit notes that she liked and felt were unique about them, and a good fit for her.
Similarly she didn’t play the LOCI game for the EA school that deferred her. She said she wouldn’t tell a school she was still interested and would attend when it wasn’t true, just to see if they would accept her later.
My D’s ECs were also all over the place. It didn’t stop her from getting into engineering programs.
8 Likes