Most students underestimate the power of their essays to get admitted. As we shared in last week’s newsletter, they usually think academics mostly determine their admission chances. As we discussed, that’s not true.

This week, we will do two things:

prove that the personal score really is the most valuable component of your application and
show how to improve that score.

Note: Much of this issue is a synthesis of great material from a variety of sources on college application evaluation, such as Who Gets In and Why by Jeff Selingo and the thousands of pages from recent Harvard admissions court documents.

Why the personal score is the most valuable part of the application

Generally, students apply to colleges where their academics match those of other applicants (we’re talking about grades, test scores, and curriculum strength). For admissions teams, this means that most applicants look a lot alike — and they need another factor to distinguish applicants.

Enter what most colleges call the “personal” score. This is a score they calculate based on:

essays
the activity list
recommendations, and
the interview (if there is one).

Here’s a chart we created showing how the Personal score works with the Academic score to determine your admissions chances:

What this chart doesn’t show is that the personal score is more powerful than the academic score in nudging an application toward the “accept” pile. We’ll show that data in a minute.

But first: how do colleges calculate the personal score? They’re looking at the student's potential to succeed in college and beyond. Colleges measure this potential based on the student's experiences. As they read essays, recommendations, and activity lists, they’re asking: does this experience show the student has the traits that lead to college success?

So far, so good. But why are these squishy “experiences” more valuable than the good, hard data from grades and test scores?

Because they are more rare. Only 1 in 5 students applying to selective colleges have compelling essays. (Contrast that with 4 in 5 students whose academics are over the school’s baseline. As we said above, good academics tend to be a given.)

Why do strong students tend to deliver underwhelming essays? Because they tend to spend too much time overthinking the “style” part of their essays — going for elegance, wit, metaphors, or philosophical musings (all things you should discourage) — and too little time brainstorming their potential-showing experiences (the thing you should help students to laser-focus on).

Again, with data: why the personal score is the most valuable part of the application

Using data made public by a Harvard admissions lawsuit, we have an excellent case study for how selective colleges use Personal and Academic scores.

Harvard gives applicants ratings of 1 (highest) through 5 (lowest) in 3 categories: Academic, Extracurricular, and Personal (also Athletic, but we’re leaving that out for this discussion).

Below is a table that shows the percentage of applicants that receive each rating. Note that 1s are so rare in any category that we’re also leaving them out of our discussion, for clarity.

Within the 2s (which students can and should aim for), the most common ranking is in academics (42% of applicants, as shown above). It’s therefore not that valuable. In contrast, only 21% of applicants have a 2-ranking in personal. It’s thus much more valuable.

With these ratings, Harvard starts candidates at a 3 (neutral) and moves them up or down based on the content (good or bad) in their essays and such.

In the chart below, you can see that earning a “2” in at least one category is critical to getting in — the move from a 3 to a 2 in any category represents a stark improvement in admissions chances. But of all the categories, the biggest move you can make is becoming one of the 21% of applicants receiving a personal score of 2 (see the blue highlight in the first chart). For those applicants, the admission rate is over 1 in 4; they make up nearly 3 in 4 admits (see the dark orange, below right).

Having a Personal Rating of 2 has an admissions rate of 26% and comprises of 73% of those who were admitted to Harvard.

Another way of showing the power of a personal 2 is in the chart below. It’s the jump that most improves your admission chances. In academics, moving up to 2 triples your admissions chances (not bad). An extracurricular 2 quintuples them (pretty good). But nothing beats the 10x improvement you get by moving your personal score up to 2.

Strong Essays increase your admissions chances by 10x.

How to improve an application’s Personal score

As we said, Personal scores essentially come from essays (as well as activity lists, recommendations, and interviews). Thus, the best way to improve this score is to focus the essays on what admission readers want (experiences that show the student’s potential to succeed) and away from what students generally obsess over (writing style, metaphors, philosophical musings).

In other words, follow our writing advice which is focused only on delivering what admission teams want. To learn more, visit our page for high school counselors or explore our college essay writing blog.

In our next issue, we’ll share The #1 Question to Ask High Performers. (Aka - an easy, but powerful way to improve the Personal score.)

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The Apply

How colleges calculate the Personal Score