Influence of the essays

unalove
Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:41:20 +0000

Here’s some reassurance:

1) I didn’t have a 2300, a 2200, or even a 2100.
2) I wasn’t ranked in high school, and if I had been, I highly doubt I would have ranked in the top 10% (or, if I did, it would have been because fluff classes like band and art brought me there). In other words, I had room to improve grade-wise within my own high school.
3) I’m not an Russian princess, a future WNBA player, nor do I have anything else about me that is particularly amazing or memorable.
4) I was admitted.

I do know that there were points on my application where I stood out, and my essay was one of them. I was actually telling a friend tonight that while I don’t always feel like I belong here intelligence-wise, I feel like my essay said everything it needed to say about the person I was and expressed it in a way that my admissions counselor probably read it and thought, “Damn, this girl is really going to love this school.”

To me, the essay seems like a great way to give a voice to a sea of 3.7’s and 1400’s, distinguishing one applicant from another. I don’t think a good essay can salvage other gaping holes in your app for which there aren’t explanations, but I do think it can push a “maybe” (as I think that grade/scorewise, I was a “maybe”) into a "yes.