So...you want a college that doesn't read personal statements or essays?

Ace! Alternative Views

Cambridge Admissions Chief Says Application Essays Are Widely Ignored

Hopeful applicants labor over every word, straining to set themselves apart through carefully crafted anecdotes that demonstrate why they merit a place at the most selective universities. At least in the case of students aspiring to a spot at the University of Cambridge, however, their time is apparently wasted.

Cambridge’s director of admissions has caused an uproar by implying that his institution does not give any weight to personal essays in applications. “With the profusion of companies and Web sites offering to help draft applicants’ personal statements for a fee, no admissions tutor believes them to be the sole work of the applicant anymore,” Geoff Parks was quoted as saying in both The Times and The Guardian. “We certainly don’t assign any marks to personal statements,” Mr. Parks added in The Times.

Mr. Parks’s comments have fueled controversy and prompted Cambridge to post a statement on its Web site addressing what it calls “a number of misleading impressions” caused by “recent media reports about the use of personal statements and their value in the admissions process.”

The statement says that personal essays, as well as teacher recommendations, are indeed evaluated as part of the application process. “We would like to assure all applicants and their advisers that, when making our admissions decisions, we do take into account all the information available to us, including that contained in personal statements and references,” the statement says.

In his comments, Mr. Parks also suggested that “now that students can ask to see their references, teachers have stopped saying anything interesting or controversial,” The Times reported, and those recommendations are therefore also given little weight.

Mr. Parks’s comments have sparked heated exchanges among admissions officials, The Guardian reported. In comments posted on a Guardian discussion board, someone describing himself as a former admissions official at another top British university said that he too had “ignored personal statements,” as did many of his colleagues. “It’s time the message got out to applicants, parents, teachers that we really don’t care about personal statements, and they can stop worrying about them,” he wrote.


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