Some people claim that their essay is for eg. 7/10. How do you rate that? Could anyone rate mine, please? I got very confused of how does it work…
If you write a very good essay and are modest, you may rate it a 7-8/10
If you write a very good essay and accurately gauge its quality, you may rate it a 9/10
If you write an OK essay and are modest, you may rate it a 6-7/10
If you write an OK essay and are overconfident, you may rate it an 8-9/10
Very few students submit essays they’d rate 5/10 or lower - the one exception being essays done in an hour and started at 10:50 PM on the night an application is due.
If a student self-rates an essay 10/10, ask yourself what quality of writing you’d expect from someone who doesn’t understand the concept of subjectivity.
Self-rating an essay is fairly pointless, because 90% of students are overconfident and another 9% compensate too much for this tendency and underrate their essays.
Generally speaking, the best way to evaluate an essay you’re unsure about is the opinion of a teacher (ideally an English teacher) whose understanding of good (and bad) writing you have faith in.
If your school’s counselors have a reasonable workload, it never hurts for them to look over an essay and give you additional feedback. At schools where each counselor handles 100+ kids, this often isn’t an option, but if you’re fortunate enough to have feedback from a GC, that can help. They’ve seen what works and what doesn’t many times in their career.
Parents, although many students seek their opinion, aren’t always the best judges; like you, they may have trouble being objective or gauging how an essay will be perceived by a total stranger.
More than 3-4 people offering feedback will almost invariably detract from an essay’s quality: a half-dozen readers will give you conflicting opinions, and that many suggestions can turn the best of essays into a hodgepodge of several different styles.