October is when seniors get scared. The creepy Halloween ghosts and goblins are not creating this panic, it’s the fear inherent in the college application process. They turned the page of the calendar and suddenly with some deadlines just days away, the process has become real. Very real.
Every year, this insecurity results in people suddenly adding a number of schools to their lists and, the inevitable, essay do-over. If you think about it, it is completely counterintuitive to add work at this late date that is likely not to reap any rewards. It can actually be detrimental as valuable time that could be spent on individual college applications is lost.
In hope of relieving at least some of the anxiety surrounding the personal statement, I would like to share a message I have repeatedly heard from college admissions officers, the personal statement is the cherry on top. It is no more than a sweet extra.
Here are some paraphrased statements from college admissions officers of highly selective schools:
USC: “We didn’t create the personal statement prompts. We did write our own questions, which we wouldn’t have done if we didn’t really value the answers.”
Cornell: “I can’t love you until you show me the transcript.” What he meant by that is that no essay, no matter how amazing, is going to get somebody in who was not otherwise a strong candidate.
Northwest: “We really don’t use them. They are truly optional. We only ever used them to evaluate writing skills, but then we realized that most people who apply to Northwestern can write well enough. We are only interested in our own question.”
University of Chicago: “We find that we get more useful information from the answers to our questions. The personal statements tend to be repetitive; they don’t give us new, valuable information.”
So, don’t believe the person who posted on TikTok that their essay got them into Harvard. I wish them luck on their essay coaching business but hope that they learn more about college admissions before they take on clients. This does not mean that the personal statement is a waste of time or of no value. These colleges do not represent everyone, and the personal statement certainly has an important role for those colleges who use a holistic review process but don’t have their own essays. The time you spent laboring over it this summer was time well-spent, but it is important to know when to let go.
Seniors: Your takeaway should be that at this point in the application process, your time is best spent on the supplemental essays. They are important and provide opportunities for you to do everything from describing an impactful activity to showcasing your academic interests and, of course, why XYZ University is the best place for you to learn and thrive. This is the prime place to display your values and intellectual curiosity and convince each college that they need you in their community. To write an effective supplemental essay, you must put in the time to research the college and organize your thoughts. Do not be deceived by the low maximum word counts, you should have a lot you want to say and fitting it into a paragraph should be challenging. If you think it is easy, you aren’t doing it right.
Juniors: Thank you for reading this far. Your takeaway should be to approach the application process with the intention of spending as much as the entire summer on the personal statement, if you want. Finish it by the first day of school and don’t look back. Form your priorities based on the real weight of each piece of the application; not on what you think the important pieces are.