Each application cycle thousands of applicants grapple with challenging and sometimes opaque essay questions. During the process, people often find themselves pondering not just the essay prompt, but the purpose of the essay itself. How heavily are the essays weighed compared to other elements of the application? Does the admissions committee really read them carefully? Will I be admitted if I write a great essay or rejected if my essay is subpar?
While the answers to these questions are not black and white, the purpose of application essays is clear: it gives the applicant an opportunity to add color and vibrancy to their application by revealing who they really are in a way that numbers cannot.
Let’s look at two applicant profiles:
Person A: undergraduate GPA: 3.9; GRE 329
Person B: undergraduate GPA: 2.7; GRE 314
Most people would agree that based on these numbers Person A is clearly more deserving of admission no matter how good Person B’s essay is.
But consider this profile comparison:
Person A: undergraduate GPA: 3.7; GRE: 325; one summer internship; one club leadership experience
Person B: undergraduate GPA: 3.8; GRE 323; one summer internship; one sports leadership experience
When the two candidates’ profiles are essentially identical like this, how can we make a distinction between them and decide who is more deserving of an admission? It is in situations like this that essays play a vital role in admissions decisions. Via the essays, we can gain insights into individual struggles, passions, personalities, and dreams that will help us decide who is more interesting, a better fit for the class, and/or more motivated to reach their future goals. In other words, a well-crafted essay has the power to differentiate two candidates who are very evenly matched on paper.
Generic [ juh–ner-ik ] (adj.): Shared by, typical of, or related to a whole group of similar things, rather than to any particular thing.
A generic essay is bland and undifferentiated from the others in the application pool. It doesn’t stand out. Your essay should contain unique, memorable, personal stories. If the essay doesn’t stand out, it won’t grab the admissions officer’s attention. If it doesn’t grab the admission officer’s attention then the application may lose the tiebreaker among equally qualified applicants and end up in the rejection pile.
To be clear, the purpose of essays in the admission process is not to hold a writing contest. Universities do not have a goal of recruiting the next Hemingway for a master’s program in mechanical engineering. Rather, it is a communication contest. It may seem like a paradox, but a person can be an adept communicator and not necessarily a great writer. In short: the person that can effectively communicate who they are, what matters to them, what they are good at, and why they highly value this education has a massive advantage compared to the person who communicates in a vague way or does it poorly.
Be sure to be reflective when writing your application essays. After you write the first draft, zoom out and ask yourself some of the following questions:
- Does this essay show my unique personality and perspective?
- Does this essay reflect what I really care about and what is important to me?
- Could the essay only be written about me and my specific life experiences (in other words, it wouldn’t make sense if another person wrote it)?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, dig deeper into how you can present your key experiences along with your personality in a way that could only be written by you. Your first-hand experiences, how they affected you, and the stories you tell about them should be distinguishing elements of your application when compared with others.
Conclusion
Crafting a well-rounded and impactful essay takes dedicated planning and a concerted effort. If you are interested in learning how our strategic approach can help you develop holistic application essays feel free to check out our consulting services.