MIT shortens application essays

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...

"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.

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.

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.

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

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

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....

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