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Allie
@Cluffalo
I used to consult on admissions essays and more than once flat out told people "You cannot write this, you will not get in" ...almost always essays like this This isn't a case of discrimination, this personal statement would tank anyone's high-tier admissions chances
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Zach Yadegari
@zach_yadegari
Replying to @zach_yadegari
My personal statement
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3.2M
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David Watson 🥑
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Allie
@Cluffalo
To be clear admissions discrimination is 100% a thing, but not every dude with high test scores is a case of it
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Corey Walker
@CoreyWriting
Glad he posted this, because it showed why he got rejected. This essay was just personal bragging that would make anyone roll their eyes.
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Brandon P
@theapriorist
Personally, I don't understand how this is that bad, if theoretically merit and ability to create social networks is the requirement to get into colleges. Why is this bad in your view? What are colleges looking for, if not merit and social ability?
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Allie
@Cluffalo
Your essay isn't where you show merit, and this essay shows negative social ability via a huge lack of self awareness He seems to have a poorly-calibrated sense of the merit he has, it's written as though he's expecting the admissions office to be star struck Colleges are
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Christian 🦬
@diet_worm
It’s too conversational but somehow also reads like a PowerPoint slide at a quarterly financials meeting.
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Allie
@Cluffalo
If I'm in an admissions office reading this, I'm going "Cool, so this kid will drop out after a year and is surrounded by a community encouraging him to."
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Allie
@Cluffalo
If he'd left it at the reject list I would have actually bought that it was (possibly) just straight white dude discrimination But like DANG that essay is horrid
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eli 🕯✨
@nienna121
I was an admissions director before becoming a SAHM and…yeah. Whenever people complain about not getting in despite good grades/scores the essay is almost always garbage I think there can be a conversation on how requirements are weighted but for now this is how it is!
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Allie
@Cluffalo
It's funny because I think a large number of people assume the essay is like a cover letter and doesn't get read
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Bart Wallace
@Bartwinsmith
Bet yet places like Harvard have to have remedial algebra. Perhaps we should not worry about essays so much but what they can do. Besides I have never been impressed by Ivy League people. Currently they have basically ran the US in the ground
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Allie
@Cluffalo
He said he had "great writers" look this over and if that's the case they must not be great friends because they skimmed this, at best
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Allie
@Cluffalo
The essay contextualizes everything. Your resume and scores are just dots, your essays connect them (either favorably or unfavorably).
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BRDPS
@br0keR4sputin
The essay seemed more than fine for an 18yr old to write considering a lot of teens are very poor w/ their writing/ideas. The kid rightfully dismissed college as a path given his immense success. He humbled himself and saw that he didn't want to learn from YT anymore and the
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Allie
@Cluffalo
It's fine, key word fine. It's not top-level which is why he got the results he did. This one isn't like a crazy perfect essay but it does what a solid college essay should do, imo: - We get to know a side of her that's probably not on her resume (flying) - Introspection and
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Allie
@Cluffalo
Demonstrates low commitment toward college, very little thought into why he needs college (more of a throwaway sentence), and it makes him sound like an egomaniac (a lot of people are but it's crucial to be able to fake normality, and this is one place you're supposed to
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Allie
@Cluffalo
The questions are usually supposed to be kinda vague so you can talk about whatever you want
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Allie
@Cluffalo
Colleges are generally looking for the following formula: [Extremely promising young person] + [College] = [Ambitious but virtuous goal] Your job is to explain how you are that person, your goal is that goal, and this specific college/program is the missing piece
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Erix Arocha
@erixfilming
As a consultant for the love of gawd can you explain why these kinds of essays don’t work?? The students aren’t going to learn simply by people repeating over and over “it won’t work”, they need to know why it won’t.
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Allie
@Cluffalo
Do you honestly think that that would be the extent of my advice to someone or do you think I'm summarizing for the sake of a tweet
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Catherine Johnson
@smarterparrot
This letter sounds like it was written or revised by an LLM When LLMs produce personal statements, the person they create sounds like he or she is bragging Here's an example: catherineandkatharine.wordpress.com/2025/01/13/spo (Answer explanation: catherineandkatharine.wordpress.com/answer-page-11)
catherineandkatharine.wordpress.com
Spot the robot: answers
** All Spot-the-robot puzzles ** #110 Passage 1 is a Yelp review of Evergreen Day Spa. Passage 2 is Chat GPT’s response to “Write a 180-word, 1-star, yelp-style customer review of a massage parlor.…
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Meekro
@RealMeekro
What would you say about an admissions essay where the guy just writes “Black Lives Matter” 100 times over? That one got into Stanford.
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Uber Hobbit
@ABitWistful
This is like asking a girl to the prom while telling her you missed out on all the cute ones because you were on vacation in Positano. You had all but resigned yourself to skipping it but now that her acne has cleared up and her braces are out she doesn't look all that ugly.
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@O1010lO
The kid is brilliant driven and a bit unpolished in his coms style In an ideal world, this is exactly who they should be accepting That said, I agree with how you would have written this, but you can teach polished writing, you can't teach ambition
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Chevalier
@AmericaChivalry
Going through comments I’m getting the impression this is ignoring the multimillion dollar business. It’s not a lemonade stand. Most people accepted have zero professional experience.
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Maker Patrick
@TheMakerPatrick
The cool thing about personal statements is that if they are truly personal, they tank your chances. You have to hire professionals to help with your “personal” statement. Fun
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Washed Gamer
@RealWashedGamer
His essay just screamed "I want to party" and his responses in the thread clarified that Nothing wrong with it, but it makes sense why an Ivy league doesn't want him
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Travis Nicholson
@ultracoldtravis
I have done graduate admissions for my department. Admittedly that is a different beast than undergrad admissions, but this essay makes it seem that undergrads make many of the same mistakes that I’ve seen. For those wondering why this is a problem, try to see it from my
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Keenan
@KeenanMiller7
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Keenan
@KeenanMiller7
Replying to @MonicaLMarks
The guy who wrote “ Black Lives Matter “ 100 times got accepted into Princeton and Stanford and Harvard
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Colby
@Infection556
I have no stake in this so who cares what I think But if I read something like this; my first thought would be “so you don’t have a real desire for college”. Toss.
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chenchen 𓆩♡𓆪
@flourmelon
Yep. The writing isn’t strong, the content should be restructured, and the overall tone is just offputting. Essays should spark reverence and learning, not entitlement lol.
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ILikeBucks
@mkeBucks11
Why would an essay about how awesome you are and how you don't need college make a college not want to admit you?
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Nick Brown
@NickBrownCO
This is not a bad essay. He is being authentic. He’s extremely successful, and also has the desire to expand his horizons. He made that clear.
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Zenith
@Zenith_Pax
One thing I've sensed going to school here is that male ego is absolutely shunned in writing. It rubs everyone the wrong way. I suppose the biggest lesson he got is that learning your audience is important. I personally don't mind the essay one bit. If a young man w/ raging
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Patrick Gareau
@PatGAustin
It’s weird that this would be disqualifying when a commitment to communism-esque principles is often a plus. Ie “ I volunteered on a campaign to give all the billionaires money to Native Americans”
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Zac Kaizen
@ZacKaizen
He is still seeking hedonism and does not realize it. It is conveyed all throughout his essay (if you can call that writing style an "essay"). They are rejecting him because he is telling them he is not there to learn, but to party. He should just rent an apartment right
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Prof Kat 🦍🦄
@profkatn
The sentence structure, the punctuation, the sense of entitlement, the lack of self awareness. Big no from me.
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Shycollie
@shycollie
Sure, but we all know that if he were Black or trans he gets in wherever he wants with those scores
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Bavarianswan
@bavarianswan
After going through both sides of sorority recruitment, you learn everything isn’t personal. Sometimes people just slip through the cracks. You can have people rooting for you and some things just dont match up in the end. Another life lesson from Greek life 😂
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SlouchingTiger
@tiger26297
Grandiosity. That's what stands out to me. And arrogance. This reads like someone who thinks the world is their stage, everyone in it are his film crew and he is the super star at the centre of it all. (slow clap)
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Matthew Williams
@MatthewW_eacc
Sounds like a problem with the admissions process tbh, when I was a hiring manager these types of people were who I looked out for. Driven, thoughtful, accomplished, and capable of self reflection and growth.
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Calc Consulting
@CalcCon
And this is exactly why college today is useless for so many people. This kid has tremendous social awareness, demonstrated by the evidence he spent his formative years figuring out the needs of other people and then creating products that fulfill those needs. He then
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Citizen Lane
@laneshetron
Surely people with worse essays and worse grades have gotten into NYU though? I feel like there’s something he’s not telling us
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Kharn
@Kharn_300BO
He would drop out as soon as his next inspiration hit. Denial was the correct answer.
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TheRightWingLiberal
@TheRigLib
Lets refer to this classic
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Ziad Ahmed
@ziadahmed
I submitted this answer in my @Stanford application, & yesterday, I was admitted... #BlackLivesMatter
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Ksana
@bigarms4me
can I ask a breakdown of why it's a bad essay? like I get it it's bad I just wanna know which parts make it THAT bad
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Thrasher66099🔮
@Thrasher66099
It’s very simple. You must grovel. The college must feel superior to you and that they are doing you a favor. It cannot be the other way around. Their egos can’t handle it. I dare someone to make an argument that doesn’t abstract into this fact.
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sepia
@sepiatonal
"Sorry, you're rejected for bad vibes. We're letting in some black who needs remedial math instead."
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Max Epstein
@madmax875
Essay reads like this to me: I was so totally not into you. I thought you were fat, ugly, and lazy. Most of my older friends got stuck marrying girls like you, so I decided I would never settle. I would only bang supermodels with god-tier coding skills and dump them like Barney
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ree
@somejwm
One question is why don't colleges allow a certain % of people they don't think will fit well but are intelligent. Wouldn't that be better for humanity? Mark them as needing character assistance give them a different balance of classes. Have heart to hearts. Etc. If you leave
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Happy Porcupine 🖥🏴‍☠️
@xpaulso
The essay is a bit obnoxious, but its honest. So the advice is to lie ? Tell them exactly what they want to hear. Sounds like the entire process is BS. It easy to write pretty words like. I'll used my education to help others & change the world for the better.
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ZalinskySilverworks
@ZalinskyS
And that's the problem with making the essay important. Someone with access to a "consultant" is going to outperform someone who does this themselves, particularly a 17 year old boy-man who probably still has low EQ. It's sexist actually. The average 17 y.o. girl is far more
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It'sNotThatSimple
@N0tThatSimple
> huge lack of self awareness That's moral police. That's exactly the issue with modern colleges. "If you don't think the way I think or pretend to think like I think, I will not let you pass regardless of how good you are"
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Leia
@Leira410
No doubt white and asian students are victims of discrimination but I don't think that had anything do with it in this case.
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Nick Crosland
@Nick_Crosland
Except this is actually horseshit. As someone who has sat on these committees, this warm fuzzy marketing is absolute garbage. This is a transaction. That’s it. The personal essay boils down to a couple things. It’s not ‘do we like this kid’ it’s really ‘will this kid make us look
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Cracktus
@Cracktus420
That essay is just him bragging about his accomplishments. I don't understand why a college would reject a highly successful individual though, even if he is an asshole. Wouldn't it be just more good PR for the college? Since you can say "This hypersuccessful guy attended here"
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Rath
@mak3333
I get it that the essay is crap. Imo, when you are talking about a unique applicant like this, the essay is meaningless. An 18 year old that has legitimately built a multimillion dollar tech business is a unicorn. Harvard should bend over backwards to bring him to their community
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Chevalier
@AmericaChivalry
Specifically what was the issue? These same universities accepted lower score applicants with “BLM. BLM. BLM.” copy pasted until they met the word count. His business alone should send it. It’s anti white discrimination. These institutions have been captured by the Chinese
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TopologicApple
@topologic_apple
This essay is not admissible because laying bare merit and achievement, and more when it is spelled in dollar terms, goes against the lefty ideology of these institutions, where fake humility is used as a cover for elitism, as fake diversity is used as a cover for homogeneity.
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HighDefViking 🌲
@HighDefViking
The TLDR is that A.) the admissions chick hates White people and B.) he's already seen some of the real world, and his professors won't be able to shoehorn their bullshit into his brain. He's already successful; they hate him for achieving it without their "help".
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Tired Tweeter
@rwsscott
Other than the specific college fit, where does his essay fail to do this? "[Extremely promising young person] + [College] = [Ambitious but virtuous goal]. Your job is to explain how you are that person, your goal is that goal, and this specific college is the missing piece."
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BrunsonsBurner
@Bruns0nsBurner
His last 2 paragraphs about wanting to learn from people and be around other people who also want to learn should’ve been the focus of the statement. Not his bragging about being a successful entrepreneur
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