Bonus Myth #2: How Important Is The College Essay?

Have you checked out the new 10-page guide, 10 Myths of College Admissions, available on our home page? As we were putting it together, it was so hard to limit ourselves to just 10 myths (college misinformation abounds!), so here’s an extra bonus myth!

MYTH #12: HOW IMPORTANT IS THE COLLEGE ESSAY?

I could really give this myth two titles. “The essay is the most important part of the college application” and “The essay is the least important part of the college application.” 

I’m often asked whether a stellar personal statement can make up for a student’s less than perfect grades or lackluster extracurricular involvement. I’m also often asked if anyone actually reads the essays in the first place. 

So how important is the college essay anyway?

The answer I tend to give students and families is, “Maybe not as important as you want it to be but also more important than you think.”

That’s not very clear, is it? So let’s unpack what I mean. 

All of the essays (that’s right… essays), but especially the personal statement, are the student’s chance to have their voice heard in the application process. It’s the only place in the application where they get to speak directly to whoever is reading their application and say, “This is who I am. This is how I think. This is what’s important to me.”

When we explain this to students, we like to pull this quote from the Johns Hopkins admissions website:

“[The essay is] a chance to add depth to something that is important to you and tell the admissions committee more about your background or goals. Test scores only tell part of your story, and we want to know more than just how well you work. We want to see how you actually think.”


The essay plays a unique role in the admissions process. It represents a student’s voice, thoughts, and core values–important factors that can’t be entirely gleaned from a transcript, activity list, or even letters of recommendation. 

This is extremely valuable information that can provide new insight and context to the application. For many students, essays can make a real difference in the admissions process.

But I’ll be honest with you, as valuable as the essay can be, its importance is offset by time. When colleges are receiving tens of thousands of applications in a single season, entire applications are reviewed in a matter of minutes. The most we can expect is for a student’s essay to get a generous skimming. 

Admissions counselors are reading very quickly and are experts at pulling out the key takeaways in a flash, so it’s important that a student’s overall message is extremely clear. So clear that someone who’s never met them before can get to the heart of their essay without having to read between the lines.

When we run our essay workshops, here are 3 things we tell students to keep in mind to help the admissions counselor reading their application really get to know them:

CONTENT

No matter what a student chooses as the topic for their essay (and it really can be just about anything), the real topic of the essay is always the student! They are the star of this show!

CHARACTER

Authenticity matters! If the point of the essay is for the reader to get to know the student, it’s important that the essay sounds like the student.

Students don’t need to fall into the trap of trying to sound like the ideal (and boring) student they think colleges want. Essays need to reflect their writer - who they are, how they think, and what’s important to them.

WRITING ABILITY

Students don’t have to be strong writers or even like writing to be successful at introducing themselves and telling their story. The college essay is not an essay for English class, and a student isn’t going to be “dinged” for a dangling modifier. And no one is giving out bonus points for using bigger words like “utilize” instead of “use” (remember, we want the overall message to be clear and concise). 

That said, what we want to see in a successful college essay is effort. An essay with no structure, improper capitals, riddled with typos and using “ur” instead of “your” (yes, I’ve seen it…) can all indicate that a student may not have put a lot of time, thought, or effort into their writing.

Students should take their time, write more than one draft, and run that final draft through Grammarly (it’s free!) to take care of any glaring grammar errors.

Questions about college essays?

Check out our other essay writing resources!