Common App? US Admission System?

The class of 2020 is going through the toughest period of their careers as students, struggling with sleep deprivation, learning new materials, and meeting deadlines for colleges. Almost every student applying to US colleges uses the Common App, an application that allows high school students to apply to most colleges simultaneously. One salient feature of this application is crafting a personal narrative that reveals one’s true character. Students can choose one of the six prompts or write a topic of their choice. They can take many different approaches to sell themselves to the admission staff, but most essays have a focused theme.

Although the essay requires a mere 650 words, writing it is an extremely challenging process. Seniors applying to U.S. colleges shared some of their grievances coming up with captivating ideas and crafting a flawless essay. A senior, Ben L, commented on the difficulty of writing his Common App essay: “I have to constantly remind myself to avoid gravitating towards flowery writing.” Another senior, Terry M., said “[he] couldn’t even find ideas to begin with”. Most seniors share a similar sentiment and hope to get over with the essay; however, writing Common App essay, as well as supplementary essays, take much more time and effort than what students first anticipate.

The college essay is not a simple task that can be written with minimal effort like taking notes on a subject matter. If the final product is unsatisfactory or too generic, students often delete the entire draft and start from scratch, repeating this process over and over again if necessary. Ben L. stated “[he] has restarted [his] common app essay more than 10 times.”

The debate of whether or not the admission system in the US, such as evaluating students based on their common app essay, is valid has remained a huge controversy. US colleges tend to evaluate students from a more holistic perspective, looking at many different categories such as their character, achievements, extra-curricular, and standardized stats. This stands in stark contrast to the purely test-driven traditional Asian model. High school English teacher, Ms. Barga doesn’t think that “test scores and grades are as accurate of a predictor of college success as a broader perspective on the students’ character and activities outside of academics.” A more holistic approach in the admission process seems like the most reasonable and appropriate; however, some students challenge this notion because this process can be extremely biased sometimes. For instance, the mood of the admission staff, one’s ethnic background, and many other unpredictable factors can affect the admission of high school applicants. A senior, Jason H. shared his perspective on this issue by saying “US college admission system is more biased because it doesn’t just look at numbers.” There is certainly lots of luck involved so students’ anxiety doubles due to the uncertainty of their future.

The school wishes the best of luck to the class of 2020.