Accepted! 50 successful college admission essays - Gen Tanabe, Tanabe Kelly 2008

College admission: art or science?
The almighty admission essay

The former senior associate director of admissions at Yale

University discusses the art of college admission

It would be great if college admission were a science with a simple formula to determine whether you were accepted or denied. Grades of x plus test scores of y equal guaranteed admission to colleges a, b and c. It would certainly reduce your stress level to know where you stood in the process.

But the reality is that no single score or grade is a complete refl ection of who you are. And college admission is more complicated than a simple formula of x + y = z. It is more accurate to think of college admission not as a science but as an art.

Colleges want to know you both as a person and as a student. They want to accept those who will add to the campus both inside and outside of the classroom. While scores and grades can tell colleges about your academic performance, the essay and other parts of the application reveal more about you as an individual.

We asked Lloyd Peterson, former senior associate director of admissions at Yale University, former dean of admissions at Vassar College and current director of education at College Coach, to answer the question: Is college admission an art or a science?

“I think college admission is much more of an art today than it was 20 years ago. There are fewer decisions made today based on matrices or indices. More decisions are made on qualitative factors and on a stronger balance between preparation and potential,” he says.

Peterson says admission offi cers are aware that this system is not good for your blood pressure. He recalls, “Many moons ago it was more methodical and formulaic. Now it’s more like a chess match, which drives the public crazy. The public wants a blueprint. They do not want to wallow around in the gray area. But it’s that gray area that makes our job an art.”

Considering the selectivity of colleges and the fact that American institutions are the highest rated in the world, it appears that this system, while not perfect, works in matching the right students to the right school.

Save time with recycling. By reusing and editing your writing, you can use one essay for multiple applications. We share tested techniques for doing this effectively.

Understand what colleges want to see in your essay—direct from

admission offi cers. Our distinguished panel of admission offi cers explain in their own words what qualities make or break essays. This is your opportunity to pick the brains of these experts who have determined the fates of thousands of other applicants like you.

Be inspired from the success of other students’ essays. We have brought together over 50 successful essays written by a wide variety of students. Get insight into what worked for these students to gain admission to their dream colleges including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Duke, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, UC-Berkeley, USC, Northwestern, Brown, Cornell, Bard, William and Mary, University of

Chicago, University of Michigan, Dartmouth, Rice and more.

In short, this book gives you everything you need to take control of your essay and create the best one possible. It is critical that through your essay you (fi guratively, of course!) grab the admission offi cer by the collar and give her a reason to admit you. By reading this book you are taking the fi rst steps toward this goal.