Application essays and the ritual production of merit in US selective admissions

doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2022.101706

Poetics

Volume 94, October 2022, 101706

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2022.101706 Get rights and content

Under a Creative Commons license

open access

Highlights

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We theorize admission essays required by selective colleges as a ritual.
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The annual commission and production of admissions essays instantiate an idea of merit.
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We analyze novel essay data from applicants to the University of California in 2016.
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Schools and applicants produce a broad but bounded range of merit within this genre.
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We find admissions essays reify a national cultural belief in merit as broad and multi-faceted.

Abstract

US colleges and universities are defined by their exclusivity, and the most prestigious schools reject most of those who apply. Yet these same schools also widely advertise their inclusiveness, encouraging students from all backgrounds to submit applications and highlighting evaluation protocols that identify many characteristics worthy of consideration for admission. We surface this paradox and use it as motivation to theorize a little studied component of college applications: personal essays. Drawing from cultural sociology, we posit that the commission and production of essays extolling applicant worth and worthiness is a ritual practice that instantiates an idea of merit that is broadly shared among those who submit applications to admissions-selective schools. We pursue this work empirically by observing essay prompt selections of 55,016 applicants to the University of California in 2016 and conducting human readings and statistical analyses of 3,519 unique essays. Results indicate that prompts and essays encompass a broad but bounded range of life challenges that selective schools and applicants consider meritorious. The entire process of application to selective US schools helps to reify a national faith in a broad and inclusive conception of merit.

Keywords

College admissions

Higher education

Evaluation

Holistic review

Ritual

Cited by (0)

Ben Gebre-Medhin: Ben Gebre-Medhin is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mount Holyoke College who focuses on the relationship between universities, academic identities, and social inequality. His recent work concentrates on the qualitative components of holistic review, and his forthcoming book asks how a handful of wealthy, elite, private universities in the U.S. came to compete over free virtual courses during the MOOC movement. Prior to completing a postdoc at Stanford University, his work was supported by the U.S. Department of Education (Javits Fellowship) and the National Academy of Education (NAEd/Spencer Foundation).

Sonia Giebel: Sonia Giebel is a doctoral candidate in Sociology of Education and Higher Education at Stanford University. She is interested in how different dimensions of identity, including race and gender, are understood and deployed during key academic transitions, especially the undergraduate admissions process. Sonia's work has been supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship, and the Fulbright Program.

AJ Alvero: AJ Alvero is a computational sociologist at the University of Florida interested in language, race/ethnicity, culture, and education. His current research leverages computational techniques to analyze college admissions essays and model the social patterns within them.

Anthony Lising Antonio: Dr. anthony lising antonio's research focuses on stratification and postsecondary access, racial diversity and its impact on students and institutions, student friendship networks, and student development.

Benjamin W. Domingue: Ben Domingue is an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is interested in psychometrics and quantitative methods.

Mitchell L Stevens: Mitchell Stevens is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University, where he co-directs the Pathways Lab (pathwayslab.stanford.edu).