@lookingforward - thank you for the response. It’s not the response I was hoping for, but it is consistent with what I’ve heard a few times from others who seem to have a deep understanding of this process. It does lead me to question some of the advice from Urena though.
@baltimoreguy - you hit it right on the head!!
@CHD2013, the Universal College Application has a section called “Multimedia Information” which provides a place to put a link to relevant online content, along with a brief description of what the link contains. I don’t know if the CA has anything similar. This is separate from the art and athletic supplement forms, and is part of the base application.
@renaissanced - thanks
A number of years ago a U of Rochester admissions counselor spoke to our staff & I remember him saying “if I read one more essay about scoring the winning goal or about a community service project they did I’m going to scream”
Let’s recap…they want the essay to show who you are…but answer the prompt in 750 words or less…right.
Back to square one. IMO Either they fool themselves into thinking the can see who that kid is in an essay by grasping certain ohrases as illustrating the “who”, or they don’t actually care. You might be able to spot someone you don’t want, but otherwise you are guessing and hoping they are what you see in your head when you read the app.
The process is a broken when any school receives so many apps, let alone most of them receiving so many.
The vast majority of essays are either terrible or perfunctory and that’s fine- the decision to admit or reject has already been formulated in the reader’s head before reading the essay, and it’s merely used as confirmation (i.e. the reader is going to reject the kid. The essay is poorly written, thereby confirming the decision to reject. The reader is going to accept the kid- the essay is acceptable- not great, but fine- thereby confirming the decision to admit).
The piece that gets lost on CC is that the number of kids for whom an outstanding essay (or conversely a terrible essay) is going to matter (i.e. change the outcome) is a very, very small number. I know kids who spend the summer before senior year grinding away at an essay- I say, "Why don’t you read an actual book? Or the newspaper? " and they look at me like I’m crazy.
If your kids stats make them an obvious admit somewhere, then I don’t think a boring essay on winning the soccer tournament is going to hurt. Conversely, the likelihood that your B+ average kid with the middling scores is going to waltz into Swarthmore on the basis of a kick-$%^ essay is pretty close to zero.
Don’t overthink this stuff. Most essays look like they were written by teenagers- because they were. I am truly astonished by the parents who have time to carpool their kid to SAT boot camp and a writing coach who didn’t have the time when the kid was eight years old to take the kid to the public library (why pay a coach to make your kid sound like someone who reads a lot when your kid could have ACTUALLY been someone who reads a lot?)
On the margin- for the vast majority of admissions decisions- it’s not going to put a finger on the scale.
Stanford says no extra materials, but most schools will take extra recommendations if they really show something teachers can’t speak no. My older son’s teachers knew he was smart, but the one and only comp sci course he took at the school was AP Comp Sci freshman year. He had a professor for whom he’d done some work, and the guy he worked for the summer before senior year and into the fall write letters. They were able to address not only his competence, but also his ability to be part of a team, to work independently and to teach himself stuff he didn’t know yet.
Younger son sent his origami earrings to Vassar because that was an option there. Other schools could google him and see a website he had at the time, but he didn’t make a big deal of it. That wasn’t really the point of that essay. For younger son, in particular, some school’s optional essays enabled him to show his best side, while others did not nearly so much. Unsurprisingly he did best at those schools.
blossom–it is also true for the “elites” that the essay doesn’t particularly matter for the vast majority of decisions (assuming it’s not unusually bad nor incredibly good), or were you speaking of the vast majority of college admissions decisions, overall?
I side with blossom on the idea of taking children to the public library (or buying books on Amazon), early on.
There are a lot of possible “advantages” that become apparent when one reads CC–SAT boot camp, writing coaches, and private admissions counselors among them. I am inclined to think that “getting it” is greatly assisted by living in a neighborhood or going to a school surrounded by people who do “get it.” With regard to “doing the work” to find out what particular colleges want to see, it seems to me that it would be a great advantage to have a private admissions counselor to explain that–or even to have the proper cultural background to read between the lines accurately, on the colleges’ web sites.
A strong student doesn’t need SAT boot camp–he or she can just walk in the door of the testing locale and walk out 4.5 to 5 hours later, done. Writing coaches, though, I think could be an advantage for many people. My department has just concluded a review of the graduate program, in which we decided that we needed to arrange for professional writing courses for the grad students. I myself could use a writing coach to get off CC and write more papers.
The private admissions counselor sounds to me like an increasing good idea–except that I don’t think there actually are any around here. I am not thinking about “counselors” who would write material for a student, nor about “counselors” who would advise an Asian American applicant to move to a weaker school and participate in the Miss State Y pageant, with baton twirling as a talent. Rather, I am thinking about counselors who actually know what the schools are looking for, and can provide informed advice to students.
I am not asking that college admissions personnel should make excuses for students who have not had these advantages, nor overlook what seems to be a poor personal fit. However, I think it would be good if anyone who worked for college admissions were aware that the overwhelming majority of students, and probably a majority of “elite” college applicants (HYPSN) do not have these advantages. Even though these students will most likely be rejected by the elites, there is no cost in thinking about them in a considerate manner.
In #184, csdad mentioned that a University of Rochester admissions staffer remarked that he/she was likely to scream, if forced to read another essay about scoring a winning goal or serving the community. The person who works in admissions at Rochester made this statement while speaking to csdad’s staff. It would be helpful if the same comment is made in admissions sessions. Even then, it would not be “free” advice, because unless the applicant is local, he/she needs to get to and from Rochester, and possibly stay overnight, if it’s a long distance.
Finally, with regard to the essays specifically: The essays that make me really uncomfortable are the very polished pieces that read as though they are shorter versions of an article that the New Yorker would publish. I’ve seen a few examples of these on websites and in books that are supposed to be guiding students on writing good essays.
Sure. But we started with talk about the elites. Adcoms know not all kids have primo support. But they also know how many programs of various natures do exist. Some are non-profits and some are established mentoring from various groups. A vast number of opportunity high schools are attuned to building successful futures for their able students. Whether or not any of us are aware of them in our areas, across the country, they are there.
All this is the adcom’s lifeblood and livelihood. They are not naive. There is a lot more going on in various areas than just rich parents buying services for their kids. It’s just not common knowledge on CC. We still get posters assuming all a poor kid can do is babysit siblings. Or that the adults around them are just clocking in, not advising and encouraging. The kids who are challenging themselves and succeeding, academically, socially and in their communities, are noticed.
Some are darned remarkable. Some really do show up Johnny Average, who just thinks participating in a few clubs, having some passion, any passion, and raising a little money are his key.
Again, there is nothing wrong with a good, insightful essay about a service project. It’s the superficial ones that disappoint. And, I may disagree a bit with blossom or others that the essay doesn’t matter. It can show a lot about a kid’s thinking, ability to edit those thoughts, and judgment.
I have heard admissions officers say very similar things both at sessions at the college and at the college night our high school organizes. The advice one officer gave was that if you dropped your essay on the cafeteria floor it would get returned to you because other kids would recognize you in it. I think there are kids who fly under the radar for whom this might not happen, but I think both my kids’ essays were recognizably then - not just by the activities they described, but also through their voice.
Once a GW officer said his favorite Common Application prompt was “write your own prompt”, sadly not an option any more, though in my experience nearly anything you want to say can get shoehorned into one of their prompts. That same officer said about 10% make a real positive difference, 10% sabatoge the application and the rest generally confirm a general impression of yay or nay.
My younger son with some iffy grades and lopsided scores, knew that it would really behoove him to have essays that made a difference. I think they probably did. Though his teachers loved him, even the ones who gave him B’s.
“However, I think it would be good if anyone who worked for college admissions were aware that the overwhelming majority of students, and probably a majority of “elite” college applicants (HYPSN) do not have these advantages.”
What makes you think that they don’t already know this? That’s rather insulting to them. Of course they know that not every applicant is Ursula Upper-Middle Class with educated parents, savvy private school guidance counselors, and an understanding of what’s what.
Sure they know not every applicant is Ursula, yet that is still mostly who they end up accepting, because those are the kids who have the requisite goods.
One would think that with all the talk on CC about recruited athletes, that that would be an area where the non-Ursulas would have a better shot at admissions. Well, no doubt that’s the case for football or basketball, especially men’s. However, it’s not the case based on D1’s experience meeting teams while on NCAA official visits and unofficial visits, and not so based on my own examination of the rosters for D’s sport. I have been looking recently at schools for D#2, and still find the athletes are largely private school kids with names like Quinn Ratcliffe who hail from schools like Andover or Germantown Friends (and a multitude of other institutions with names ending in Preparatory or Academy.) If they are from public high schools, they tend to be from affluent suburban schools whose names many CCer’s would have heard of because they are excellent and highly competitive. As an example, a public high school that is known to be a powerhouse in D’s sport is Fayetteville Manlius in NY. Here’s the SES composition (the stats are a little outdated now) according to Wikipedia: “As of the 2005-06 school year, the racial/ethnic makeup of the student population was 91.8% White, 2.7% Black or African American, 4.4% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 0.8% Hispanic. Approximately 0.5% of the population, or 8 students, demonstrated limited English proficiency. Approximately 0.8% of students qualified for a reduced-price lunch, and another 3.5% were eligible for a free lunch. Since then the Asian student population has increased significantly, and now makes up around 15% of the school or more. Many of the students are Jewish.” Probably a lot of Ursulas there. At the elite D attended, she was the ONLY girl on the squad from a regular middle class public. And her sport was track, not squash or crew.
“Sure they know not every applicant is Ursula, yet that is still mostly who they end up accepting, because those are the kids who have the requisite goods.”
And yet every time they don’t accept Ursula Upper-Middle Class, Ursula UMC’s parents come on CC and whine that they accepted the black or the Hispanic kid from two towns over who had lower SAT’s and isn’t that unfair. They really can’t win for losing. There is NO rubric that they can use that will please everyone, so as the great sage Ricky Nelson said 50 years ago, they have to please themselves.
“I have been looking recently at schools for D#2, and still find the athletes are largely private school kids with names like Quinn Ratcliffe who hail from schools like Andover or Germantown Friends (and a multitude of other institutions with names ending in Preparatory or Academy.)”
FWIW, my nephew played what I’ll call a preppy / moneyed sport at Princeton and absolutely, his teammates were overwhelmingly high-SES private school kids. (He was / is, too.) That’s the racket, personally.
“Sure they know not every applicant is Ursula, yet that is still mostly who they end up accepting, because those are the kids who have the requisite goods.”
Your kids weren’t Ursula Upper Middle Class, right, from your description? Yet they got accepted to top schools IIRC.
Pizzagirl, I don’t think there is a point in trying to argue that the distribution of incomes among the families of applicants admitted to HYPSN is very close to the distribution of family incomes within the US. Certainly, the “elite” schools take students who are not from the top quintile in family income, but it’s hardly the case that 80% of their student bodies come from families outside the top quintile. The bottom of the top quintile doesn’t even count as “wealthy” in my view.
The question isn’t how the admitted compare to the US pop. The question is how they compare to the applicant pool. Are lower income families less represented because they are despised or discriminated against or are they less represented because they simply don’t apply in sufficient quantities?
I don’t think they are discriminated against, but are simply less likely to have the necessary credentials. The elites are risk averse and don’t want dropouts to ruin their graduation rates. So rhey can only allow so much leeway on academic preparation.
My children are closer to Ursula than not, but the college advice they got at their high school was not great, especially the English teacher’s advice about the application essay.