The Almighty Essay

By The Editors
Chris Gash

In the latest edition of Education Life, The Times’s quarterly supplement, to be published this weekend, Trip Gabriel wonders why the personal essay is so important to admissions officers. The essay is viewed as the one place where a student’s own voice can be heard. In his story, “The Almighty Essay,” Mr. Gabriel writes:

But what if it can’t? What if, like most 17-year-olds, a high school senior sounds wooden or pretentious or thunderously trite when trying to express himself in the first person? Prose in which an author’s voice emerges through layers of perfectly correct sentences is the hardest kind of writing there is. Plenty of professional authors can’t manage it. How reasonable is it to expect of teenagers?

Read the full article here.

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LivewithFlair January 7, 2011 · 2:27 pm

Fantastic point. I teach advanced writing to college seniors, and we spend 4 weeks on the memoir genre. Developing a written voice is one of the hardest and most elusive concepts in writing. You have to have self-awareness but then be able to translate that into tone, mood, and rhythm. Hard! Here are some tips: 1. Vary sentence length and sentence openers. That helps create voice immediately. Practice inserting 3 word sentences. 2. Toggle between the big 5 punctuation marks to create voice variation (semicolon, colon, dash, parentheses, and commas).

LG January 7, 2011 · 4:06 pm

Many great points! Of the many “top” schools my son applied to, only one asked for a copy of a graded (w/ teacher comments) analytical paper from an English or History class. That seems like a good way to evaluate writing ability, thought process, school rigor, and perhaps interest in a subject. One 2-page paper can reveal much beyond grades and scores. Naturally the personal essay was also required…

Drill-Baby-Drill drill Team January 7, 2011 · 4:24 pm

Is it a surprise that writing skills are essential to becoming educated?

It was for past generations, but young people today do not know how to read or write cursive, have evolved an atrocious abbreviated text msg spelling, think punctuation is optional, rename themselves an avatar named “Brad1234@n!&*(,” rely on word processors to catch spelling and grammatical errors, and think an essay above 140 characters is too onerous.

Week and flabby rich kids: someone is bound to eat your lunch.

Josie January 7, 2011 · 4:35 pm

You sound bitter. If your children are really talented and motivated, they will make it without going to some fluffy namby pamby prestigious college. No need to be bitter about it. Sending kids to private colleges these days is an exercise in flushing good money down the toilet. And I admit, I went to one of those prestigious colleges and am simply lucky that I didn’t get suckered into going to law school like the majority of my unemployed classmates who expected BigLaw positions.

My friends who went to state colleges and community colleges before going to 4 year institutions are far more successful monetarily. They majored in things that matter, like IT and engineering. While my friends with their beautiful penmanship and high GPAs are trying to cope with dashed expectations of what being a grown-up would be like and what being an alumna of our lovely Seven Sisters school would mean in the real world.

Jim January 7, 2011 · 5:39 pm

Great article, I couldn’t agree more strongly that the personal essay should not be given near the importance that it has. The essays aren’t good predictions of who will do well at a given school and they give an incredible advantage to well-heeled applicants who can afford to hire advisors. I love law school admissions – its 90% about undergrad GPA and the LSAT (which is strongly predictive of first year grades) and reccomendations, personal essays, etc. are only used in a supplementary role.

Fan of the essay January 7, 2011 · 6:39 pm

I respectfully disagree with the sentiment that essays aren’t an important part of the process. GPA and test scores are given a lot of weight at most schools, but the essay allows the process to be about more than just numbers. Even if an applicant is not a natural writer, with enough time and thought he or she should be able to put a more human voice to their request for admission.

A Programmer January 7, 2011 · 7:13 pm

The next Bill Gates may not get into Harvard…

Tomian January 7, 2011 · 11:40 pm

Week and flabby?

Spell, baby, spell!

MoM January 8, 2011 · 12:40 am

I couldn’t agree more with this article – thanks, Editors, for printing Mr. Gabriel’s piece. My HS senior is by every measure a tip top student of English, frequently sought out by classmates for writing and editing tips. Yet as Mr. Gabriel states, she got zero advising or instruction in writing in her own voice, and had much difficulty figuring out how to do so for her college essays. (The night that I gently asked her to consider re-writing a very well written but mostly impersonal analytical essay was the last of the screaming matches that have gone on in our house over the college application process – whew, glad that’s over!).

What’s a parent to do? – (1) shell out big bucks for a writing tutor and torture the kid by taking up yet more of her precious time doing something that seems – well – not terribly fun or useful; (2) shell out bigger bucks and also pay the horrible price of teaching dishonesty by paying someone else to write the darn things for her; or, (3) shell out at least 300 bucks to buy two dozen of the available how-to-write-an-essay-that’s-guaranteed-to-get-you-into-Harvard books, tie your kid in a closet with the books, and don’t offer her food or water until she comes out having read all of them and ready to write THE Best Essay Ever Written.

Kidding aside, there are two main problems with the application / supplemental essays. First, IF admissions officers use them to distinguish the “better” applicants, they privilege the already privileged. Students who do not have support at home or money to access tutoring will most likely not produce the same polished products as privileged students who receive help and coaching. Though some plagiarists may be caught, how is it really possible to tell a good “coached” (or ghostwritten) essay from the real deal?

Second, what Mr. Gabriel fails to comment on, is that using the application essay as a judge of “personal character” is one of several old, handy tools that selective universities use to continue the institution-serving tradition of opacity in admissions. To quote from Jerome Karabel’s excellent book on elite college admissions, “The Chosen”, the use of subjective and non-academic factors “permitted gatekeepers to balance interest groups against one another in selecting a class” (p. 486). E.g., if the factors which lead to admission are unpredictable and unknown, the institutions can continue to obfuscate the weights given to factors such as legacy, wealth, celebrity, political ties, elite athletics, etc. in choosing a class. So you’re just a really smart creative kid with a standout record and tons of academic promise – well, sorry honey, we might have admitted you … but, well, maybe it’s that less-than-stellar personal essay that didn’t get you in. Try harder next time, K?

Michael Ball January 8, 2011 · 1:47 am

I agree with the fact that the essay has to much importance especially compared to high school performance, and extracurriculars. (I really think strong extracurriculars can show as much as grades do in a students work and talents, and more if they happen to be specialized.)
I wish that the essay was treated more as an interview and less as an evaluation in a way. I’m not the greatest writer by any means, but I’m not bad, so that affects how I view the essay. I really feel that the essays give students a chance to explain more about themselves, their interests and backgrounds, etc. – if students actually write about something that’s them. That only applies to a few types of prompts, usually the more open ones. Essays that specifically as for a life changing experience or a defining moment can reveal a person but not everyone has such things by 17 years. I think the problem is when essays are evaluated as a means of prefect writing, compared to a more open way of actually looking at the content rather than style. (Some schools do specify which they prefer, even going so far as to condone a sense of colloquialism in writing, usually with shorter answers. That can help applicants write a more pertinent essay.) It’s really a toss-up with me because I see the value of students being honest, but definitely feel the pressure of a couple pieces of paper and the disadvantages compared to other elements.

As far as other parts of the article, I think it’s worth noting, that while there may be trends among selective schools, they generally vary more than the article makes it seem, especially looking at types of schools – liberal arts colleges, smaller specialized schools, or specialized programs, or just large institutions with specific interests. Most of these schools state what they look for, and that usually correlates to a general school vision or mission for its students, which can help determine a fit for students in some ways.

MW January 8, 2011 · 10:45 am

The essay should be considered together with the interview. Some people express themselves better by writing, others in conversation.

I wish the number of essays required would be reconsidered. There are two for the common app and generally one to three for each school- then many more for scholarship and honors applications. Applying to ten schools with scholarships can mean writing more than forty essays!

Elena January 8, 2011 · 11:38 am

My fairly dorky and simple “why I love science research” got me into a top-20 ranked school. There are other ways to play the personal essay.

DDH January 8, 2011 · 12:11 pm

As a former college admissions officer and college counselor at a selective private college and a number of independent schools, I always found the personal essay a troubling component of the application. As Gabriel notes, most essays are dreadful or doctored and hardly represent any applicant fairly.

As an admissions officer, I skimmed essays but only as a small piece of the overall profile the student presented. The grades, the rank, the school, and to a certain extent, the scores determined my vote. I also weighted heavily any personal contact e.g. an interview which is difficult to fake or script, try as they might. Other staffers read the essays with great care and gave them significant weight in their vote. Taken together, the admissions committee ended up doing a pretty good job of it.

During this time, the college participated in a longitudinal College Board study designed to evaluate our effectiveness at rating and screening applicants. It turned out that as an admissions staff, we did a pretty good job of evaluating the applicants, admitting students who generally succeeded at the college – personally and academically – but we worked hard at it, developing a sixth sense about a kid’s application file.

So the lesson is, some admissions officers read the essays; some don’t, but every applicant is stuck writing the darn things. My best advice: write (talk) about who you are and the conduct of your life, writing about where you stand and what you believe. And trust me, the joy being accepted or the pain of being rejected by a college fades fast as life accelerates you away from college.

JT January 8, 2011 · 1:47 pm

I also think the essay is overrated and pretty much agree that colleges overvalue them.

However, I do have a few of exceptions. First, if it reveals some significant obstacle overcome that would not otherwise be known from the rest of the application, such as poverty or a disability. Second, if there are multiple spelling or grammatical errors. Third, if it reveals a serious character flaw that you would not want on campus.

secret lady January 8, 2011 · 3:12 pm

Mr Gabriel writes that first person essay writing is not taught in High School English. I can’t comment on what is taught in High School English but as a retired literacy specialist in a Queens Public Elementary School ( regular school, not charter,) our ELL and former ELL students were introduced to memoir writing by 3rd grade. They continued to write memoirs throughout their elementary career.

While the level of proficiency varied from student to student I can comfortably say that by 5th grade the vast majority had found their voice. The essays I read enabled me to get to know who my students were as people. I would imagine this is what the college admission officers are also trying to do.

If my students, with their non-English speaking parent can master the skill than surely so can Mr. Gabriel’s children.

Skeptic January 8, 2011 · 3:55 pm

Two years out of this process and happily settled at an Ivy, I still contend that the essay is an absolute waste of time. Circumstances have allowed me significant insight into the evaluation procedures at my school and other top colleges. I poured hours into my essay, but who knows whether it did any good: at many schools, especially those with huge applicant pools, many officers spend less than twenty minutes reading all the writing in our files (including recommendations). They’re not lazy; they simply don’t have the time. An unusual topic can make a compelling essay, but does it really matter if the reader gives it only a cursory glance? And if you’re really lucky, your admissions officer won’t even read your essay as DDH indicates.

Eliminating the essay would make a ridiculous process less painful. Submit a high school paper. It’s a better reflection of a student’s ability, harder to plagiarize, and an indication of what’s to come once he or she is admitted to the university.

Jeff Levy January 8, 2011 · 8:43 pm

I find it ironic that Trip Gabriel, a journalist whose writing has made the Times a more vital paper than it might have otherwise been, is so opposed to the one written component in the application process. Gabriel’s writing is persuasive as he talks about how admission reps “have made a fetish” of the personal essay, but his evidence is missing.

He himself states in his piece that the personal essay ranks fourth in order of importance of the factors considered for admission, following grades, rigor of secondary school curriculum, and standardized test scores. Hardly the “mighty weight” he refers to.

And most baffling is his statement that nearly half of the most selective colleges in the country “give more weight to the essay than grade-point average.” This is incorrect. A random check of ten of these institutions— Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, MIT, Middlebury, and Pomona—finds that none of them (according to their most recent Common Data Sets) give the personal essay more importance than grades or rigor of secondary school courses. Middlebury and MIT, in fact, give it less.

The anxiety in Mr. Gabriel’s tone is not unfamiliar to any parent who has gone through the pre-application process with high school juniors, as he is now with his own children. While some may complain about the importance of the written essay, others worry that a public school background will disadvantage their children, or an inability to afford SAT prep, or a lack of access to accurate information about what the application process even entails. The fact that about 75% of colleges now look at all the component parts of an application holistically guarantees that in the end the system actually works pretty well.

My guess is that Mr. Gabriel’s children will do just fine in their college search, and if their essays are written from the heart and focus closely on what actually matters to them—even with an occasional trite phrase or awkward sentence—they will wind up at schools where they will be happy, challenged, and successful.

Emily January 9, 2011 · 8:20 am

This was an excellent article. High school students are repeatedly told which trite, overused topics, such as overcoming adversity or fascination with a hobby, to avoid.
How many different things can an intelligent seventeen year old be expected to discuss? I agree that many of these essays are heavily doctored. Without knowing the student personally it is impossible to tell if the essay is his or her own work. Submitting an academic paper has another advantage to the legitimate ones Mr. Gabriel raises. It is far easier to tell if such papers are plagiarized by submitting them to the appropriate software programs or simply by searching phrases on “google.” The typical personal essay may be more likely to have been created or substantially changed by a parent, teacher or guidance counselor than to have been copied outright from the internet.

Kristen Dubinsky January 9, 2011 · 8:37 am

One of my students from Bengladesh was admitted to Mount Holyoke on the strength of her essay. Another student got into Smith.

In both cases, my two students tell me that they followed Mary Duffy’s e-book ‘Sentence Openers,’ for every sentence they wrote in their essays. Of course I take credit for their admission because I use Mary’s guide as a textbook in all my AP classes.

By the way, the Almighty Essay is the most practical essay I’ve seen in years of reading similar articles in the web. Parents should clip it, study it, and use it to help their children.

And incidentally, my student from Bengladesh was admitted with a full scholarship that included room and board. For her livings expenses she was given a job to was pots and pans in the cafeteria.

marie January 9, 2011 · 10:55 am

Recently, I read an essay by a senior that I think did “nail it”. She wrote, not about what she expected to achieve, but the process of trying to figure that out. She wrote about the agony going through rote “extracurriculars” to build her resume, then finally finding a volunteer experience in a hospital that changed her thinking. She reflected, not on what the experience was giving her, but about her discovery of the lives and pains of other people, and the impact larger systems (health care, workplace safety, child care) have on the life and death of people of different walks of life. What jumped out from her writing was the her empathy for the patients she fetched adn carried for, and for the housekeepers, CNAs, and orderlies who did the toughest work. In bringing them to life in her prose, she painted a picture of herself that made us admit her even with uneven grades in Spanish and less-than-stellar athletics. Why? simply because she showed her concern for other people and for her world, not just herself.

holly January 9, 2011 · 1:36 pm

I can empathize with the journalist’s situation–My son just finished applying to colleges last month. One aspect that is frequently overlooked in debating the merits of the personal essay is the correlation of a good essay with success at college and after graduation when the student is planning to pursue a field of study such as engineering, math or computer science. I believe it is important, no matter what one’s career, to be a literate writer and communicator. But the ability to successfully craft a compelling essay with a distinctive voice about one’s teenage self is certainly a more valid data point in admissions for those students seeking to be an English or other writing-intensive major.

seachange January 9, 2011 · 1:55 pm

I have said this before – the essay is unfair because many essays are no longer authored by the student. Parents readily admit without apology or shame that they have hired someone to write or heavily edit the essay. It should be eliminated from the application and replaced with graded coursework.

Ellen S January 9, 2011 · 3:39 pm

I find it interesting that none of the comments have thusfar mentioned what I think is the most important part of the supplemental essays for many colleges — determining whether the student has demonstrated a serious interest in the particular school. Thus, so many schools have “Why College A” as an essay choice, giving students an opportunity to show that they have actually been to the school and know something about the specific school and why it is a good fit for them.

Also, my sense is that the admissions officers may use “bad” essays to eliminate students. An essay may be bad because it is poorly written, it has been poorly proofread, it mentions another school or city (the tour guide often mentions essays for GW that discuss going to Boston), or it shows that the student’s unattractive side, such as a student who whined about caring for an elderly grandparent with dementia.

Tobi K January 9, 2011 · 7:40 pm

I am a high school senior who has just finished applying to several top tier schools. Let me begin by agreeing with Mr. Gabriel: I highly doubt that one approximately 500 word essay has any impact whatsoever on a student’s success in college and afterwards. But, as someone who is surrounded by other students with similar grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities, I realize that there needs to be some kind of subjective component to the application in which the student has the chance to make his or her case personally for why he or she should be admitted to a certain school. The reality is that, in our world, personality and one’s ability to express oneself are important attributes beyond school. Therefore to say that it is unfair to require students to express who they are in a well written and interesting essay is to ignore the importance of these qualities later in life.

As to Mr. Gabriel’s point that schools do not adequately prepare students to write in this style, I largely agree. Most of my high-school writing has been about proving a point or making a case for a certain argument, rather than an exercise in first person expression. However, this is not entirely true. During my AP English class in junior year, the teacher had everyone in the class write a “memoir” essay in order to practice just this kind of writing. I can say without a doubt that this was a great assignment, even though it was extremely challenging at the time, because it pushed everyone in the class to attempt a style of writing we had no experience with. The essay that I wrote for that assignment evolved into the same essay that I submitted as my personal statement and several of my classmates have told me the same thing. It was a challenge–sure. But I actually found writing that essay and other college essays interesting–and dare I say fun?– as they allowed me to explore and think about in depth who I am and what I am looking for in a college.

Abbey S January 9, 2011 · 9:34 pm

As a current high school senior just finishing the college application process, I have to admit that my case isn’t typical. I legitimately enjoy writing – I have been writing constantly my whole life, and I have been reading books and taking classes on the subject for years, all of my own volition. I worked hard on my essay, and I loved writing it, and like much of my writing, I used it to procrastinate on my school work. When I say that my essay is the most important part of my application, the part that will hopefully redeem my science and math and history grades, I want you to understand my full meaning.

While I am clearly grateful to have this personal essay to lean on, I know that most of my classmates agonized over writing it. If the personal essay was the only facet of the application, I am perfectly aware that I would be accepted to most colleges before many of my smarter, harder working, more deserving classmates. So, I have to agree that there should be a change. Writing is extremely important, but students should be able to submit the genre or style of writing with which they feel most confident. I don’t propose to eradicate the personal essay completely, but providing wider options would be a step in the right direction.