Why – and How Much – Does the College Essay Matter in the Admissions Process?
This morning I spoke with a potential client, a former Wall Street trader. This dad wanted to hire a college application coach to develop and execute an “application strategy” for his son, a high school senior. Flummoxed at the plethora of application possibilities – from EA, to ED1, to ED2, to regular decision, and more – this titan of finance seeks security in the increasingly competitive world of admissions.
I’m sympathetic to families’ desire for certainty. But I’m not sure that we can find it by gamifying the admissions process. Instead, I recommended that students try to strengthen the last aspect of the application process over which they still have complete control – the college essay. Now, I know what you might be thinking. “As a college essay coach, of course you’re going to recommend hiring a college essay coach.” Maybe, maybe not. Allow me a few moments to explain why, at this point in high school seniors’ trajectory, they should try to craft the strongest essay possible – and why English teachers and guidance counselors might not always be the best guides to writing one.
You can’t change bad freshman year grades, but you still have time to write a great college essay to mitigate their impact
By mid-September of the senior year, the other primary components of the college application – coursework and GPA; test scores; extracurriculars; letters of recommendation – are in the student’s rearview mirror. Your child has been working on the most important aspect of a student’s overall application – course selection and grades – since the end of eighth grade. The admissions committee will evaluate the courses they took and their performance in those courses during the first three years of high school, especially if they’re applying early. (Ditto for extracurriculars and letters of recommendation, which play a much less important role in admissions decisions for most students, anyway.) While seniors should not “slump” in their last year of high school – most schools reserve the right to rescind an offer of admission if senior grades are abysmal – the simple fact is that seniors no longer have control over the biggest factor in admissions – high school grades and coursework.
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The role of the college essay in admissions has grown as test-optional policies spread
Let’s move on to the second biggest factor: test scores, for those who choose to submit them. Many seniors do take the ACT or the SAT in the fall (as an SAT tutor and ACT tutor, I’m working right now with a couple of these students!). But if they’ve waited to start studying until mid-September, it’s likely not going to effect a huge change in their score. (My own SAT students either took my small-group class or did private SAT coaching with me this summer.)
For students who have chosen to apply without scores, the essay – along with every other piece of their application package – plays a larger role than for those who submit scores. (For those of you whose children are in the Classes of 2024 or later, please read this piece on why SAT and ACT scores do make a difference.) It’s simple math. Rather than five main pieces of information by which to assess a student’s ability, the admissions office now has just four.
Data from the last couple of admissions cycles suggest that students who submit scores are more likely to be admitted than similarly qualified applicants who did not. Therefore, like many of my colleagues, I recommend that my students always at least prepare for and take either the ACT or SAT. (We then choose whether and where to submit those scores strategically, based on the student’s score’s relation to each individual college’s median scores.) Because discouraging students to not even study and sit for one of the exams is, for most students, incredibly bad advice, I would question the judgment of any college advisor who gave it. In the case of my potential client, his son’s counselor did just that… and now she’s weighing in on the quality of the essay he’s written. Yikes.
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Why English class isn’t the best forum to write a stellar college essay
Many students write beautiful essays in junior or senior year English classes. At best, the essays that I’ve read to come out of classroom settings need a great deal of revision. Classroom teachers, like most school guidance or college counselors, bear too great a student load to spend the one-on-one time it takes to get a student to open up and bear their soul. And in my experience as a college essay coach for the past seven years, that’s exactly what it takes.
In 2018, one family came to me after their son had worked for six weeks in AP English class on his college essay. When he showed the essay to a family friend who happened to also conduct alumni interviews for Brown University, the friend broke the news that the essay would never get him into Brown. They came to me on October 25 to apply early on November 1. While the student wound up attending the University of Michigan – not too shabby! – I wondered how much stronger of an essay he might have written (and whether he might’ve been accepted to Brown) had he come to me on September 25 instead of six days before the early application deadline.
In my practice as a college essay coach, I meet students one-on-one for 50 minutes at a time, asking them questions about their lived experiences, encouraging them to “go deeper” to uncover the pain, insight, and growth that so often make for a superlative essay. I describe the hat I wear during these ten sessions as half-therapist, half-editor, half-cheerleader. (Yes, I know that’s 1.5 hats: I have big hair! 😉) No teacher or counselor has the ability to spend 500 minutes with all the seniors in their classes or caseload.
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One more reason why the college essay is key? Money.
Despite his background on Wall Street, the potential client seemed surprised to learn that the essay’s quality might have bearing on how much merit aid his son could earn. I explained to him that just like great grades in rigorous courses, a superb essay indicates a student’s superior merit to a school. Colleges that award merit-based aid – like Loyola University, where my former student Jessica (see video below) is now a first-year – attempt to entice stellar students with merit aid. Jessica got $30,000 a year to attend Loyola after working with me on her essay. Other former students have been awarded full rides to college based on the essay they produced with me. Given the average cost of a private, four-year institution and the cost of a single college essay coaching package with me, that is more than one-hundred times return on investment!
Oh, and about that investment. While ten, one-on-one sessions with me is certainly the most efficient way to write a highly effective essay, I understand that private college essay coaching is out of the range for many families. That’s why I’ve undertaken a couple of new initiatives this year. First, each year I’ll mentor one exemplary student on a pro bono basis. This year, that student is a former Bronx Community College student of mine who graduated at the top of her class despite experiencing homelessness as a teen. Right now, she is working with me on her transfer applications and her college essay.
In addition, I’m partnering with Port Washington Adult Education to offer a four-week, low-cost, online class (students do not need to be district residents to attend). While students will not receive the same amount of one-on-one coaching that they would receive as private college essay coaching students, they will get the same initial background lesson on brainstorming and crafting a personal brand, as well as up to 45 minutes of private coaching from me throughout the course.
Please feel free to drop me a line if you have questions about the online course, which runs from October 2 through 23, or private college essay coaching. With a little bit of guidance, your teen can take control over one of the most overlooked, but crucial, aspects of the college application process.