How Much Do Essays Matter for Ivy League Admissions?
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How much do essays actually matter for Ivy League admission? More than most people realize. The goal of the essays is to positively differentiate yourself from the pool of other highly qualified applicants. It’s hard to compete on grades.
There’s lots of straight-A students with about the same number of aps, or dual enrollment or IB credits. Once you reach the penultimate pile, the everyone in this group would do well here, pile, the essays and the activity list are your best and perhaps only chance to move the needle.
Short answer: Significantly.
Longer answer: The goal of the essays is to positively differentiate yourself from the pool of other highly-qualified applicants. It’s hard to compete on grades — there are lots of straight-A students with about the same number of APs, dual enrollment, and IB credits. You can’t get more than 99th percentile ACT/SAT. You have no control over your letters of recommendation, but those are probably all glowing too.
Once you reach the penultimate pile — the everyone-in-this-group-would-do-well-here pile — the essays and the activities list are your best and perhaps only chance to move the needle.
Fun fact: At the Ivy level, your essays and activities list may be the only things in your application that are actually yours.
Reference: the Common App essay prompts.
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