

MIT shortens application essays - nobody_nowhere
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/10/04/no_essay_nightmares_for_mit_applicants/

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brandnewlow
Essays were originally instituted to give admissions staffs an excuse to keep
out Jews and other minorities.

[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge)

"The difficult part was coming up with a way of keeping Jews out, because as a
group they were academically superior to everyone else. Lowell’s [Harvard
prez, mid-20s] first idea - a quota limiting Jews to fifteen per cent of the
student body - was roundly criticized. Lowell tried restricting the number of
scholarships given to Jewish students, and made an effort to bring in students
from public schools in the West, where there were fewer Jews. Neither strategy
worked. Finally, Lowell-and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton-realized
that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the
wrong kind of student, the solution was to change the definition of merit....

...The admissions office at Harvard became much more interested in the details
of an applicant’s personal life. Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit
information about the "character" of candidates from "persons who know the
applicants well," and so the letter of reference became mandatory. Harvard
started asking applicants to provide a photograph. Candidates had to write
personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their
extracurricular activities. "Starting in the fall of 1922," Karabel writes,
"applicants were required to answer questions on ‘Race and Color,’ ‘Religious
Preference,’ ‘Maiden Name of Mother,’ ‘Birthplace of Father,’ and ‘What
change, if any, has been made since birth in your own name or that of your
father? (Explain fully).’ "

As a Princeton admission officer for 2 years, I read probably 5,000 essays. A
few were memorable. Most were forgotten as soon as I finished scribbling out
my summary. The point of the essay was to write something that would leave a
mark on my brain so I might take an interest in your application later around
the committee table during deliberations. Some kids were great at this, others
not so much.

That said, I don't recall admitting a single student based on the strength of
their essays. They were there to add flavor and color. If you didn't have "the
credentials" you weren't going to write your way around it.

~~~
hughprime
_Essays were originally instituted to give admissions staffs an excuse to keep
out Jews and other minorities._

Whereas now they only use them to keep out whites and Asians?

~~~
brandnewlow
Now, as before, they're used to inject subjectivity into a process that could
just as well be based on tests and grades alone.

The problem with the purely objective approach is you'd go from having a 40%
minority campus to having about 2-3%. That's a political problem.

~~~
araneae
It depends on what you mean by minority. As hughprime said, most schools
restrict the number of Asians they admit. Cornell has a much higher percentage
of Asian students and a much lower percentage of African American students
than the other Ivies, and it's no coincidence.

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kwantam
My application essay was not even remotely close to the 500 word number. The
MIT application had an option where you could ignore their essay questions and
just choose one of your own, so I basically made my Q/A a long-form joke. That
was about 12 years ago.

A friend and classmate of mine at MIT went on to work for the admissions
office for a few years, during part of which time we were roommates. The two
things I learned from this were that the amount of work that went into reading
the applications was astonishing, and that even an incredible essay submission
couldn't save you if the admissions staff were convinced that you just weren't
academically strong enough to make it through the school.

This leads me to believe that the changes weren't just to "remove the larger-
than-life quality" of the essay. Rather, they were probably introduced to make
it easier and faster for admissions staff to get the information they need
about an applicant and simultaneously (as the article implies) to probe
specific parts of the applicants' backgrounds.

It seems like a very logical change to me. I've always thought that the
college interview was a far better way to go than the essay---when a person is
given infinite time to prepare an answer they can mask a lot of deficiencies
in areas that are extremely useful, e.g., thinking on your feet, dealing with
other people, et cetera.

~~~
brandnewlow
Business idea: A service that lets you read, process, and manage applications
digitally that doesn't suck.

~~~
dataman85
A lot of schools use <http://www.applyyourself.com/>

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patio11
This rationalization of essays is long in coming, because in truth the
mythical status they're given is because they give students (and parents, and
people selling services to parents) the impression that even in late junior
year something can be done to significantly increase their chances of
admission into the university of their choice.

This is, largely, bunk: essays are weighted extremely modestly relative to
grades, test scores, and race. For example, on the University of Michigan
point system, where 100 points were needed for an admit, the difference
between a 3.2 and 3.6 average was worth 8 points, the difference between a 21
and a 22 on the SAT was worth 4 points, the difference between black and white
was worth 20 points, and the difference between the best essay they read every
year and the worst was worth... 1 point.

<http://www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm>

University of Michigan is distinguished from more selective universities more
in that they had the misfortune to standardize and actually write down their
admissions criteria rather than in having vastly different mixes than, e.g.,
MIT.

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RiderOfGiraffes
I am reminded of this oldie but goodie ...

<http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/essay.htm>

~~~
nobody_nowhere
Ah! Had always wondered about the origin of that. Unfortunately it would now
need to be chopped in half :)

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hughprime
The more I hear about the US university admissions process, the more I'm
grateful for the Australian system, where students are admitted, or not,
purely on the basis of their marks from their final year at school (half by a
final set of exams and half based on school marks correctly normalized by
those exams).

No BS essays, no BS extracurricular activities (unless, of course, you want to
do them) and no potential for racial or other bias.

~~~
gamble
I'm not familiar with the Australian school system, but I bet there is a lot
more national control over curriculum and teaching standards. The convoluted
admissions process is the price Americans pay for having a decentralized
educational system. If universities went on the basis of marks alone, I can't
imagine how many schools would spring up where every senior mysteriously
graduates with a perfect 4.0.

~~~
hughprime
You're right -- actually the curricula and the final exams are all done on a
statewide rather than national level, but it is certainly more centralized
than it is in the US.

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wooster
As an aside, these are my favorite admissions essays:
[http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/college/index....](http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/college/index.html)

Jos was a friend of some of my coworkers at Tellme (ex-WebTV folks).

Also, if you faint during workouts, EVER, you should read this:
[http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/cardiac/index....](http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/cardiac/index.html)

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unalone
I liked that MIT removed the extracurricular pressure. This I don't like so
much. As a recent applicant, I hold that the two useful parts of my
application were the portfolio and the essay. They're the best way to gauge
somebody's genuine ability without them being able to lie much about it.

~~~
apowell
Perhaps the essay is no longer the genuine gauge of ability that it once was.

 _"The hand-wringing that went along with the long essay, which has become the
icon of the college application, has spawned a cottage industry of
consultants, companies that edit students’ essays, and overnight camps where
students can seek help."_

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babyshake
Elite universities are increasingly interested in data about students that
can't easily be doctored or cooked up by consultants, for obvious reasons.

So I'm curious why they don't just ask for a one minute Posterous video, like
certain other elite institutions.

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daniel-cussen
This probably helps kids with ADD.

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't really think so. 500 words is not a long essay, and if you have
sufficient qualities to seriously consider applying to MIT, you are likely
able to hyperfocus and employ it as a strategy for meeting deadlines. With ADD
it's hard to get and stay engaged, but when one does find something to engage
one's attention, one can churn out a higher-than-normal amount of work in
'burst mode'.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I'm speaking from personal experience. I had ADD and didn't know about it when
I applied to schools.

