GPA, test scores, service hours – so much of a student’s experience gets reduced to numbers. These numbers are used to rank and compare kids, to define their capabilities and suggest the limits of their potential. It’s easy to see why some rising seniors dread their college applications: they feel dehumanized by the whole process.
Teenagers are far more than the numbers used to describe them. They’re weird, goofy, complicated people, and colleges know and appreciate that. While they want students who are academically capable, they also want their campuses full of creative individuals, people who are kind, curious, passionate. That’s why most good schools use some form of holistic review in their admissions, trying to find the real person between the digits and the decimals. That’s where the college-application essay comes in.
The essays and supplementals are the best (and often only) opportunities for students to distinguish themselves from the thousands of other applicants with similar or even better test scores and transcripts. They’re a chance for students to show what they will contribute to the campus community, both in the classroom and beyond, through curiosity and kindness, the passions they’ve explored and the problems they want to solve.
For students whose numbers don’t add up the way they want, who haven’t always managed their time or priorities well, whose SAT scores don’t adequately reflect their abilities, the essay is a perfect opportunity to shift the focus to their other strengths. We frequently see students with mediocre academic records getting into great schools because of essays full of personality and perspective.
For students who have been academically successful, who’ve checked all the boxes and excelled throughout their careers, the essays are even more important. The admissions officers at highly competitive colleges expect all of their applicants to have plenty of honors courses, volunteer hours, and internships; when everyone is amazing on paper, colleges look to the essays to help them find the truly perfect candidates. A good rule of thumb is that the more competitive a college or program is, the more heavily weighted the essay will be. And even students who have automatic admission to their favorite school need to invest some energy into their essays: automatic admission usually doesn’t guarantee a choice of major, so a good essay can make the difference in getting a coveted spot in a competitive program like business or engineering.
This might seem like a lot to ask from roughly six-hundred words. Luckily, writing the essays doesn’t have to be hard, and it can actually be a lot of fun. It’s difficult to get excited about filling out application fields or requesting recommendation letters, but the essays offer the freedom to be creative, funny, even a little weird (in a good way).
Summer is the perfect time to start, free from the pressures of school and impending deadlines. And, of course, we’re here to help! Our tutors love to work with applicants as they brainstorm, draft, edit, and polish essays and short answers that are just as complex, interesting, and unique as the students who wrote them.
