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Vahe Oughourlian's avatar

"A high-achieving highschool student complained on Twitter that no good university would take him, folks were surprised until he shared his personal statement essay. They're not discriminating against him, he just seems like an ass."

I agree that the essay isn't great and the writer seems to have only learned a lesson on paper (I believe in a followup the linked commenter said it was "fine"), but I wish there was more discussion around the concept of the personal statement itself and its role in college admissions. In another reply she mentions the criteria the college reviewers were looking for, which is so much more clear and useful than the advice I or any of my siblings got for our personal statements.

However, the one she links as a good example (https://apply.jhu.edu/hopkins-insider/left-and-right-dont-exist/) makes me want to vomit. Let's talk about how getting flight lessons before university is a massive privilege. Let's talk about how the metaphor of the writer's larger understand of the world via her flight experience is pretty forced. Let's talk about how, especially for certain disciplines, creative writing as the criteria for qualification probably isn't the best way to go.

In my time, the personal statement held up as the example was a creative piece about how their summer vacation turned into a series of adventures involving saving baby seals, negotiating peace with aliens, etc. I'm sorry, but none of the material around the personal statement hinted at my literal brain to come up with something like that and think they wouldn't disqualify it immediately for not following the prompt. Some years later, I think the popular one was a Standford student's one regarding Hitler in some way. Godwinning your personal statement can only work once, surely.

Granted, part of the issue is the competition is so fierce it seems like every dimension of qualification must be perfect, as opposed to the thing that puts you over the top. I don't have much of a suggestion as to how to address the issue of college admissions, but it seems like what we have is insufficient.

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