How can admission essays carry even an ounce of weight going forward?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's always been the case that rich kids could buy "editors" to write their essays. It would be entertaining to have kids submit essays as part of a standardized testing...I predict that admissions would change quite a bit if admissions officers could see how kids actually write without "support."

And must be hand written. In cursive.

Yes! No computers in the room at all.

[Anonymous]

Dream on people. Rather than wishful thinking, focus on the world we actually live in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rich kids never write their own essays anyway. They need to abandon essays entirely unless they’re written under exam conditions as part of SAT or similar standardized testing.

And while we’re at it, they need to have a flag on every single test result where the kid had accommodations like extra time to do the test.

Absolutely not! Essays are the perfect place for talking about lived experience. And it's not a writing test, take as long as you need to showcase your character, passion, grit, and how you overcome adversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich kids never write their own essays anyway. They need to abandon essays entirely unless they’re written under exam conditions as part of SAT or similar standardized testing.

And while we’re at it, they need to have a flag on every single test result where the kid had accommodations like extra time to do the test.

Absolutely not! Essays are the perfect place for talking about lived experience. And it's not a writing test, take as long as you need to showcase your character, passion, grit, and how you overcome adversity.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich kids never write their own essays anyway. They need to abandon essays entirely unless they’re written under exam conditions as part of SAT or similar standardized testing.

And while we’re at it, they need to have a flag on every single test result where the kid had accommodations like extra time to do the test.

Absolutely not! Essays are the perfect place for talking about lived experience. And it's not a writing test, take as long as you need to showcase your character, passion, grit, and how you overcome adversity.

The beauty of this is it is impossible to tell whether or not the pp is serious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much bullshit in US admissions system.

Let them write essays at the testing center like SAT.

WTF is wrong with this country.

We do not have royalty or nobility so the way the powerful families maintain privilege is through holistic admissions.

Holistic admissions helps poor people the way trump's tax cuts help poor people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Essays are a stupid requirement. They need to get rid of them. But then an entire industry of essay writing will be gone. But wait, that would be eliminated by AI eventually anyway. The point is essays are subjective, rich kids get outside help with theirs, well educated parents can help or just write their kids essays. Its another unfair requirement.

Essays: stupid
SAT: racist
GPA: everyone gets an A
ECs: birdwatching is good

SAT are also classist and sexist. Apparently, only wealthy straight white males get good sat scores. Meanwhile in reality, it's asians of all sexes and classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Essays are a stupid requirement. They need to get rid of them. But then an entire industry of essay writing will be gone. But wait, that would be eliminated by AI eventually anyway. The point is essays are subjective, rich kids get outside help with theirs, well educated parents can help or just write their kids essays. Its another unfair requirement.

Essays: stupid
SAT: racist
GPA: everyone gets an A
ECs: birdwatching is good

Why is basic math and english racist??

Anytime you see negative disparities between whites and minorities, that disparity is caused by racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't recognize AI slop, you probably think you're getting great stuff out of chaptgpt. With the amount of reading AOs do, I think they can tell.

I worked in admissions about 10 years ago.

Chat GPT wasn’t around back then, but it was still pretty obvious when people paid for essays.

It might not seem obvious when you’re just looking at one answer, but when you see the same tone and style pop up and you’re reviewing a hundred applications per day, it stands out.

The problem today and going forward is the massive increase in essays with Gen AI assistance (BTW if you use paid versions and know how to prompt…it becomes way less apparent) vs people who paid for essays 10 years ago (likely a small percentage).

You will probably know who didn’t use Gen AI because the essays will be terrible and stand out for that reason. However this is a dilemma college professors now have…how do you reward a terrible essay/paper just because you know it is authentic?

Use the AI. How you coax the AI to spit out good content and what you do with what the AI spits out is what differentiates you from your peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Essays shouldn't be a big problem for top kids. High school education is supposed to prepare you really well in writing. This is a non-issue.

Even those kids use it…I don’t understand your comment.

Unless you are shooting for T20 schools, essays are not that important anyway, AI or not.
If you are shooting for T20, and can't write a good essay, I call it a misfit.
The fact that "even those kids use it" doesn't help you. AI or not, those kids are going to write really good essays, so, a non-issue.
You are trying to make the case AI is going to change things dramatically but no it's not.

It already is…it’s called leverage. A kid that before would have only applied to 7 schools will now apply to 15 because AI can write the essays much quicker…so why not.

Also, two things can be true. That kid may be able to write an excellent essay on their own…but why bother if I can produce the finished product in one hour vs 20. Their editing skills are also likely top notch.

Finally, there are plenty of analytical high stats kids that just hate writing essays. It won’t matter much for actual college because they will be a STEM major and do just fine. Those kids will now apply to schools they probably would have passed because the essay portion will no longer be a problem.

That's the problem. These kids don't belong there. Fit is a lot more important than ranking. They should apply to MIT, Gtech, CMU, UIUC, Pursue, state flagship, SJSU.
Look,

you clearly don't have any idea how college application works

. Often your post reads just like an AI post, talking non-sense solemnly. The only difference is that, Chatgpt will apologize (insincerely) to me when I point out the error, whereas you are stubborn as ever.

Whenever somebody says this, it is pretty clearly a case of the dunning krueger effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Essays shouldn't be a big problem for top kids. High school education is supposed to prepare you really well in writing. This is a non-issue.

Even those kids use it…I don’t understand your comment.

Unless you are shooting for T20 schools, essays are not that important anyway, AI or not.
If you are shooting for T20, and can't write a good essay, I call it a misfit.
The fact that "even those kids use it" doesn't help you. AI or not, those kids are going to write really good essays, so, a non-issue.
You are trying to make the case AI is going to change things dramatically but no it's not.

It already is…it’s called leverage. A kid that before would have only applied to 7 schools will now apply to 15 because AI can write the essays much quicker…so why not.

Also, two things can be true. That kid may be able to write an excellent essay on their own…but why bother if I can produce the finished product in one hour vs 20. Their editing skills are also likely top notch.

Finally, there are plenty of analytical high stats kids that just hate writing essays. It won’t matter much for actual college because they will be a STEM major and do just fine. Those kids will now apply to schools they probably would have passed because the essay portion will no longer be a problem.

That's the problem. These kids don't belong there. Fit is a lot more important than ranking. They should apply to MIT, Gtech, CMU, UIUC, Pursue, state flagship, SJSU.
Look, you clearly don't have any idea how college application works. Often your post reads just like an AI post, talking non-sense solemnly. The only difference is that, Chatgpt will apologize (insincerely) to me when I point out the error, whereas you are stubborn as ever.

Whenever somebody says this, it is pretty clearly a case of the dunning krueger effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rich kids never write their own essays anyway. They need to abandon essays entirely unless they’re written under exam conditions as part of SAT or similar standardized testing.

And while we’re at it, they need to have a flag on every single test result where the kid had accommodations like extra time to do the test.

Absolutely not! Essays are the perfect place for talking about lived experience. And it's not a writing test, take as long as you need to showcase your character, passion, grit, and how you overcome adversity.

The beauty of this is it is impossible to tell whether or not the pp is serious.

+1

I sat there trying to figure out if they were taking the piss.