<p>When I reread my submitted essays, I found that certain meanings can be conveyed in a better and more effective way, although they contain no significant grammatical solecisms…Does anyone experience the same thing?</p>
<p>How does Yale Admission Officers rate essays? Do they go by:</p>
<ol>
<li>The school-based english or SAT essay standards?</li>
<li>Content?</li>
<li>Uniqueness?</li>
<li>Appeal?</li>
</ol>
<p>P.S. I sincerely hope they go by 2. and 4. rather than 1. and 4. But sometimes, I can’t help but worry because someone in the Yale threads once said that AOs grade application essays with criterion 1. too</p>
<p>I think their primary focus is on how the essay reflects your character and interests. If it’s very unique, that’s an added bonus. However, as for #1, if it contains a lot of distracting errors in spelling or grammar, etc., it may show that you didn’t bother to proofread it or send it through someone else to check. It might be brilliantly insightful, but if it’s written in the style of a first grader, the impression will probably be negative. Fortunately, most essays have been checked numerous times to catch these mistakes, and the admissions officers aren’t expecting you to be the next Shakespeare (but if you are, again, it’s just an added bonus). You should be fine.</p>
<p>They’re not going to go easy on you because you’re not a native English speaker. In fact, they’re going to go harder on you. Yale instruction is in English, so you have to be able to keep up not just with native speakers, but the brightest among native speakers.</p>
<p>I second the previous post; I’m from Australia, and many of the applicants from here are migrants, yet still maintain an excellent command of the English language. The ability of an international applicant to construct a nice English sentence is a bare minimum, so indeed, admissions officers will scrutinize the essays of international applicants more closely (especially from Asian countries which have a lot of applicants, some of whom are not competent enough in English to be seriously considered). Add to that the fact that the international pool is highly competitive, and it should be clear that content and unique appeal are vital.</p>
<p>They analyze content before anything else, though they do judge based on your writing style. Worry first about what the essay says as you, and secondly about how technically impressive it is. (With that said, writing style influences the interpretation, so it matters indirectly with that first consideration; it just isn’t looked at as “Oh, is this written well?” as it is in a finer critique of your work.)</p>
<p>I don’t believe they actually “critique” an essay as a professor might do; rather, they look at it as a means of understanding who you are as a person.</p>