Should College Application Essays Be Banned? (substack.com) 60
While college applicants are often required to write a personal essay for their applications, political scientist/author/academic Yascha Mounk argues that's "a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests."
The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they've faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. The college essay, dear reader, should be banned and banished and burned to the ground.
There are many tangible, "objective" reasons to oppose making personal statements a key part of the admissions process. Perhaps the most obvious is that they have always been the easiest part of the system to game. While rich parents can hire SAT tutors they can't sit the standardized test in the stead of their offspring; they can, however, easily write the admissions essay for their kid or hire a "college consultant" who "works with" the applicant to "improve" that essay. Even if rich parents don't cheat in those ways, their class position gives rich kids a huge advantage in the exercise... [W]riting a good admissions essay is to a large extent an exercise in demonstrating one's good taste — and the ability to do so has always depended on being fluent in the unspoken norms of an elite community...
Many on the left oppose standardized tests on the grounds that they have a class bias, and that hiring a tutor can make you perform better at them. But studies on the subject consistently suggest that the class bias of personal essays is far stronger than the class bias of standardized tests.... But the thing I truly hate about the college essay is not that it is part of a system that keeps deserving kids out of top colleges while rewarding privileged kids who (to add insult to injury) get to flatter themselves that they have been selected for showcasing such superior personality in their 750-word statements composed by their college consultant or ghostwritten by ChatGPT... [W]hat I truly hate about the college essay is the way in which it shapes the lives of high school students and encourages the whole elite stratum of society — including some of its most affluent, privileged and sheltered members — to conceive of themselves in terms of the hardships they have supposedly suffered...
[I]t is the bizarre spectacle of those kids from comparatively privileged backgrounds being effectively coerced by the admissions system to self-exoticize as products of great hardship which I find to be truly unseemly... And this is why I suspect that the seemingly innocuous institution of the college essay is more deeply damaging — to the high school experience, to the self-conception of millions of Americans, and even to the country's ability to sustain a trusted elite — than it appears... [I]t drains the souls of teenagers and encourages a deeply pernicious brand of fakery and breeds widespread mistrust in social elites.
The college essay is absurd and unfair and — ironically — unforgivably cringe. It's time to put an end to its strange hold over American society, and liberate us all from its tyranny.
There are many tangible, "objective" reasons to oppose making personal statements a key part of the admissions process. Perhaps the most obvious is that they have always been the easiest part of the system to game. While rich parents can hire SAT tutors they can't sit the standardized test in the stead of their offspring; they can, however, easily write the admissions essay for their kid or hire a "college consultant" who "works with" the applicant to "improve" that essay. Even if rich parents don't cheat in those ways, their class position gives rich kids a huge advantage in the exercise... [W]riting a good admissions essay is to a large extent an exercise in demonstrating one's good taste — and the ability to do so has always depended on being fluent in the unspoken norms of an elite community...
Many on the left oppose standardized tests on the grounds that they have a class bias, and that hiring a tutor can make you perform better at them. But studies on the subject consistently suggest that the class bias of personal essays is far stronger than the class bias of standardized tests.... But the thing I truly hate about the college essay is not that it is part of a system that keeps deserving kids out of top colleges while rewarding privileged kids who (to add insult to injury) get to flatter themselves that they have been selected for showcasing such superior personality in their 750-word statements composed by their college consultant or ghostwritten by ChatGPT... [W]hat I truly hate about the college essay is the way in which it shapes the lives of high school students and encourages the whole elite stratum of society — including some of its most affluent, privileged and sheltered members — to conceive of themselves in terms of the hardships they have supposedly suffered...
[I]t is the bizarre spectacle of those kids from comparatively privileged backgrounds being effectively coerced by the admissions system to self-exoticize as products of great hardship which I find to be truly unseemly... And this is why I suspect that the seemingly innocuous institution of the college essay is more deeply damaging — to the high school experience, to the self-conception of millions of Americans, and even to the country's ability to sustain a trusted elite — than it appears... [I]t drains the souls of teenagers and encourages a deeply pernicious brand of fakery and breeds widespread mistrust in social elites.
The college essay is absurd and unfair and — ironically — unforgivably cringe. It's time to put an end to its strange hold over American society, and liberate us all from its tyranny.
Sounds Fitting (Score:5, Insightful)
The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they've faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding.
You could have just removed the word "essay" from that sentence.
Re:Sounds Fitting (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, news at 11 - people usually grow when dealing with adversity.
So when there's none, they invent some.
Like, "being persecuted", "being discriminated against", being "overflown by pet-eating immigrants" and in general "being treated very unfairly".
Even when they were born with a silver spoon made of gold in their mouths and haven't done a day of effort in their lives.
silver spoon made of gold ? (Score:2)
"Even when they were born with a silver spoon made of gold in their mouths"
What AI wrote that?
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"Even when they were born with a silver spoon made of gold in their mouths"
What AI wrote that?
I interpreted that as "they're so rich even a silver spoon made from silver is not good enough". If a LLM came up with that, bravo. It's actually kind of amusing how sometimes the algorithms hit on a metaphor that somehow... actually works. We've come a long way from Data's cat poem.
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One can't eat eggs with a silver spoon so one needs gold spoons for eggs, aluminium being so common and cheap today. We need to reserve the hallowed halls of learning for the sons of Lords who know their superiority.
The hoi polloi today, don't even know why they must respect their betters.
Re: silver spoon made of gold ? (Score:2)
Maybe they wanted to make a silver spoon, but they were out of silver, so they used gold.
Re: Sounds Fitting (Score:2)
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Spot on. The last thing the people in the "we're persecuted and treated unfairly by the uppity minorities" bandwagon want is a "fair treatment".
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I actually think a certain level of unfairness is actually necessary. It is not the child's fault that their parents can't afford an education, split up, etc. However if we don't reward the children good parents you remove the evolutionary drive for people to do so. Some inequality is necessary in the system. However the problem comes where that level of inequality become effectively insurmountable. At that point you start removing to many intelligent people.
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Well, news at 11 - people usually grow when dealing with adversity.
Nah, majority of first world people take prozac when dealing with adversity. People only grow when they deal with the problems instead of avoiding them or blaming them on something else like "unfair system". US schools do not promote that approach.
Wharton Admissions Faculty, (Score:5, Funny)
I woo women with my sensuous and god-like trombone playing. I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in 20 minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello...I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang-gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire, I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail...Last summer I toured New Jersey with a travelling centrifugal force demonstration...My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago, I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four-course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prize-winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to college.
Your Humble Applicant, Doland John Trump
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Let my boy in if you want to keep your funding.
FTFY.
Re:Wharton Admissions Faculty, (Score:5, Funny)
Not enough "victim" sentiment conveyed by that. How about:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
So, do I get the scholarship?
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okay, man. +1 for that reference. (I've no mod points, sadly.)
Re: Wharton Admissions Faculty, (Score:2)
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Not enough "victim" sentiment conveyed by that.
It's an older copypasta, but it checks out. It was written by a comedian to poke fun at the absurdity of a college asking for all the spectacular things you've done when up until that point for most people, it's just "I survived high school."
I think there's so much LLM fatigue these days that people immediately see a wall of text and assume it wasn't written by a human.
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Can I give a shout out to Michael Crawford, inventor of the wall of text?
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Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion.
Ah those attack ships... those big beautiful attack ships... we love attack ships don't we folks. "attack ships", best word in the dictionary. Everybody's saying they're the best attack ships. But the people who moved to Orion, can you believe it they moved to Orion and they're setting the ships on fire.
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Honestly, I'd give you a scholarship.
Ok, boomer (Score:4, Insightful)
I, too, can't imagine it's possible to write an essay without "conceiving of (yourself)" as a victim. I was victimized just by having to respond to such limited reasoning.
Re: Ok, boomer (Score:2)
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No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unsympathetic start with the sob story of a Zach Yadegari who could not find two more points on the ACT to get into an Ivy league college. Nor could he afford to spend part of the $30 million a year his start-up earns on a proof read of his essay. Maybe he is better off without the Ivy leagues, maybe they are better off without him. But at least now he has a victim story to write when he reapplies next year.
The whole argument that the affluent have an advantage, so lets throw it out, is silly. Sorry the affluent do have an advantage that will help them long after the tutoring they got for the ACTs, their 4.0 GPA, and help writing the college essay. They will have better support through college, no matter where they go, and they will have better support after college in being successful. Their ability and the ability of those around them that help them leverage their affluent advantage will matter. If I am investing in a student to go through college, well then I want the biggest bang for my buck. So whether I am a for profit college, and parent, or a state, I want the best product from the college education. If the college essay helps reflect those best positioned to "market" themselves for success, well then like it or not it is a great metric. Instead of trying to throw out every measuring stick you do not like, or cut everyone off at the knees so we are all the same height; try finding a way to help the less affluent write a better essay, get supported through college, be better.
If the essay is a bad measuring stick for success, then sure throw it out; or refine the judgment of it. But I am not moved. If the college wants to use it to get around diversity restrictions, that is fine with me; it is up to the colleges. If the colleges admit a bunch of sob stories that flunk out or do not perform, the colleges that pick up the good students will start to rightly thrive. I was always told it worked two ways:
#1 You have two students, or two hundred with identical #1 in their graduating class, 4.0 GPAs, 36 on the ACT...the objective measurements are limited and say we have 200 equal students. The worry is there is something not measured. The hope is that an essay or a letter of recommendation could tease out that difference.
#2 You have a student with a 3.5 GPA, #2 in the graduating class, 32 on the ACT...but a great story of how there are only 10 people in their high school graduating class, they overcame cancer, and lost both parents last year...so the objective measurements may not accurately reflect what they are capable of.
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Getting around diversity restrictions is not "up to the colleges" if it's discriminatory. Such restrictions are in place for a reason. And as you have demonstrated, it does not take an entire essay to explain that you've "overcome cancer" and have "lost both parents last year" or whatever else needs to be communicated. Assuming any of it is true!
A math test instead. (Score:3)
Then give them a math test, ten word problems with answers in paragraph form.
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What's the point, when AI can solve it?
The traditional purpose (Score:4, Interesting)
... was to assure you you are literate enough to fill a few pages with reasonably crafted text. You need that in basically everything that you can study at college and if you did not get the skill before, college cannot give it to you.
The problem (and unfairness) is the modus. Instead have people come to a room, have them stay in there for 4-6h without Internet and use only provided computers and materials and produce that essay. Or do what some universtities in Europe do: Talk to the prospective applicants for an hour each. Yes, that takes a lot of time and effort. But teaching peopel that do not belong there costs more time and effort.
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How soon before you end up with a classroom full of AIs?
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Not anytime soon.
Hear hear! (Score:2)
I]t is the bizarre spectacle of those kids from comparatively privileged backgrounds being effectively coerced by the admissions system to self-exoticize as products of great hardship which I find to be truly unseemly.
I found it just as bizarre and unseemly when I was writing my admissions essay 20+ years ago. As I recall I didn't play. I flat out told them I was a kid who stood on the shoulders of giants named Mom and Dad who'd done most of the heavy lifting. Not to say that there were points up to then when I could have elected to fall flat on my face into a pile of sex, drugs, and rock and roll rather than walk thr straight and narrow to good SAT scores and AP scores, but I when I was 17 years old I never had to provi
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TBH, I could probably write a better "why I wish I went to college" essay now than anything I could've produced at 17. Over half a lifetime of experience of not having that stupid piece of paper (a diploma, not some ass kissing essay) has given me plenty of potential essay content to wax regret over. Though, had Amazon reviews existed back then, I might've been inspired to write something along the lines of one of those cop-out reviews when someone is given a free product to review and they never got arou
I disagree (Score:3)
If you can't write a short essay about yourself, aspirations, plans, and what makes you.. you... at this point in life you don't deserve to be in college. Further, we should make these kids write their essays in exam rooms without external influence, let them explain how they really see themselves.
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That only works if they are given the essay topic right then. Otherwise, they could simply memorize some stuff their Dad's consultant told them. I agree people should be able to write essays, there are already standardized test for that .. so that score should be used.
Maybe (Score:3)
Or perhaps ask for a wider range of topics and a different focus. Get them to write about other things.
Should College Application Essays Be Banned? (Score:2)
No.
Re:Should College Application Essays Be Banned? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not what you write, it's how well you write it. A well written college admission essay about why college admission essay are bunk is still a well written essay
Definitely yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Standardized testing is the ONLY way to do it. Yes standardized testing is subject to bias, well so are essays are even letters of recommendation. The best way to guess (yes, lets face it, it's a guess) someone's aptitude is standardized testing used in combination with recognized test-based competitive awards in various fields (music, STEM, athletics, whatever) is the only fair way. Ditch essays, even ditch letters of recommendation. Note, I said "test-based" because even some STEM competitions like science fairs are subject to manipulation (to block people who get others to come up with and do their project entirely while they themselves are clueless etc). Instead of fairs, the science or math olympiads are the better way.
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Why not teach for free to all comers without needing tests like Socrates?
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Because that doesn't work? All the knowledge to get most (if not all) degrees already exists and is compiled on the internet. If you want to learn everything needed to get a BS degree in Computer Science from MIT, you can simply go to the CS curriculum webpage and see the list of courses. Then you can search for each courses' content, lecture notes, textbook, and even video lectures. Reference: https://ocw.mit.edu/ [mit.edu] (btw, even if a particular course doesn't exist on there, the syllabus is known you can get a
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This is not the same as free college for everyone. This is a question of how to select the students that want to attend the top colleges in a given field, like MIT, Standford, Harvard, etc. These are private colleges and need a way to select the students with the best chance of graduating from the multitudes of hopefuls that apply. For the Class of 2029, MIT admitted 1,324 students out of 29,282 applicants, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 4.52%.
For public schools, free courses depend on state
Re: Definitely yes (Score:2)
Except that everyone graduates from these places, and to the extent that there are those that don't, that small number is overwhelmingly kids that "lose their shit" in a way that no admissions metric could predict. The other side of that coin is that MIT rejected enough students to fill their class 10 times over with other students who would be equally capable of
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Make allowance for poverty and school quality (Score:3)
The kid from a poor background or who goes to a poor quality school deserves additional credit for achieving the same level in the standardised testing as the adequately well off kid. But do be colour blind here.
Re: Make allowance for poverty and school quality (Score:2)
How does the essay help them? That can be ascertained by the scholastic rank of the school they go to.
Depends on the prompt(s) or the school(s) (Score:2)
While some admissions essay prompts allow for the kind of exaggerated adversity stories suggested in the summary, there are ample opportunities to showcase other traits and talents beyond overcoming challenges. See the Common Application prompts [commonapp.org], for example, where only 1 of the 7 base prompts asks about "challenges, setbacks, or failure."
Likewise, the University of California system, through their Personal Insight Quetions [university...fornia.edu], asks for 2 out of 8 possible prompts to focus explicitly on challenges and advers
sigh (Score:3, Informative)
Our oldest kid just went through the college application process. They received only one acceptance from schools that required an essay.
I suppressed my desire to hire a consultant to write down whatever it took to improve their odds of admission. In retrospect, I would have hired an admissions consultant 2-3 years ago to make the necessary adjustments in coursework, EC's or the essay.
Expecting 18 year olds to write adult essays (Score:3)
Yes. Replace it with testing. (Score:2)
Soft criteria helps the upper class (Score:2)
If you don't like it, apply elsewhere.... (Score:2)
Or, accept the reality that you don't have to go to college, and you don't have to go to a particular one just because your guidance councilor/parents/friends think you should. Grow a pair and chart your own course through life. College is only required for a few fields, and even tho
Just ask the right question. (Score:3)
No, don't ban them. Knowing how to write well is a good indicator of creativity and intelligence, and can give more insight about a person than multiple-choice tests and high-school resumes.
If the problem is that they've become vehicles to advertise and amplify adversities, then frame the subject of the essay differently.
This would never happen (Score:2)
I'll be playing video games. Oh, send it to that university I applied to.
Signed,
Every University Applicant
Education Fees are a Detriment to the Poor (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Maybe essays suck, but we don't need a new rule.