It's time to dump college admissions essays, writes Matthew Levey on The 74. Test scores and good grades in challenging courses are strong predictors of college success, evidence shows. Subjective criteria, such as personal statements, make it easy to discriminate against unfavored groups.
In fact, that's why Harvard began requiring a personal essay in 1926, writes Levey, founder of the International Charter School in Brooklyn. The goal was to halt “a Jewish inundation.” Once the essay was added, the percentage of Jewish undergraduates fell from 28 percent to 15 percent.
Later, when Asian enrollment soared, Harvard's application readers found ways to reject Asian applicants with top grades and test scores by giving them low scores on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” writes Levey. Like those pushy Jews, they weren't the right "fit."
While some selective universities have returned to requiring SAT or ACT scores, saying test scores give achievers from unknown high schools a fairer shot at admission, Harvard remains test optional.
Writing a personal statement has become "a metacognitive exercise in guessing what College X wants, while being told to 'be yourself',” writes Levey.
Some students get help from parents or hired "counselors" to craft their story, while less-advantaged students feel "pressure to elevate their traumas or oppression to catch the eye of the application reader."
If elite colleges need proof of an applicant's writing ability, they could require a graded essay from an 11th-grade class, Levey suggests. "It would be far more insightful – and less subjective than the recommendations that are the bane of many teachers’ existence. (And yes, Harvard also invented the recommendation letter as another way to ensure their students were 'the right sort.')"