Writing Ability and College Admissions

Writing Ability and College Admissions March 2, 2012 You dont have to be Aaron Sorkin (creator of The West Wing) to get into college. But your writing abilities do matter and too many college applicants cant write. At all (photo credit: Pruneau). If there is one thing that weve noticed in the many years weve worked in the field of highly selective college admissions, its that test scores and grades in no way correlate with writing ability. Weve seen students with straight As and near-perfect or perfect SAT scores write some awful, awful college essays. Maybe they wrote about kicking in the winning goal in a soccer game. Maybe they wrote about winning a science competition. Maybe they wrote about a trip to India. All of these topics, by the way, are trite and should be avoided in college essays. But even if you choose a boring, trite subject matter (dont do thisbut if you do), its ironic that these students with such perfect grades and scores cant even execute a well written essay. A good writer can make something good out of nothing. A bad writer cant. Its that simple. And most college applicants are bad writers. This may not be PC. This may not be what you want to hear. But its true. Most college applicants dont have the slightest clue what makes a good essay. They seem to lack a command of the English language. Its so very unfortunate. Thats why we read what good essays are to our students. Well read them essay after essay. But even this isnt enough. Theyll still turn in bad drafts after reading good essays. But then well work with the students to make their essays stronger. Draft after draft, we will help bring out the essays strengths and rid it of its weaknesses. Good writing is grounded in revising. And we sure do revise essays with our students. Paragraph after paragraph. Draft after draft. Through this process, we dont just help our students craft more compelling college essays. We make them better writers. They learn what good writing is and become more confident in their own writing abilities. And thats one of the most satisfying parts of private college counseling. While youre here, check out this post on Mistakes in College Essays.