Kill the Admissions Essay

In 2023, the Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision that effectively outlawed affirmative-action policies in college admissions, finding in favor of groups representing qualified students whose applications were rejected at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But, as he often does, Chief Justice John Roberts left a loophole. It allows colleges to continue their discriminatory admissions policies if they desire, and Roberts made sure to point at it in the decision. He stressed that universities can still take into account “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

It took Harvard less than a day to signal that it had heard Roberts loud and clear. In the university’s public response to the decision, officials quoted only one line from it: Roberts’s loophole. In the sentence immediately following that quote, Harvard said, “We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision.” Wink wink.

Since the institutionalization of affirmative action, a once-dynamic genre has hardened into a formulaic exercise in pandering. So, affirmative action will live on at America’s leading universities. Instead of giving minority applicants a bonus for checking the right boxes on the demographic questionnaire, however, colleges will simply move those considerations over to the “personal statement” component of the application package.

Many years ago, the personal statement, or admissions essay, was the part of the application where prospective students could make admissions committees aware of merits that might not show up on academic transcripts. But, since the institutionalization of affirmative action, this once-dynamic genre has hardened into a formulaic exercise in pandering for extra points. Recent research published in the Indiana Law Journal proves it.

While less than half of white applicants mentioned their race in 2024, between 67 and 70 percent of applicants of color did so. In that study, Sonja Starr aimed to determine whether reference to race or identity in essay prompts or personal statements themselves had increased since 2023, when Roberts announced the loophole. Her findings show that, out of 65 colleges and universities, about 31 (i.e., 48 percent) had a required “Diversity/Identity/Adversity Question” in the 2024 application cycle. Far more had optional ones. That’s up from 23 schools in the 2023 cycle and 20 schools in the 2022 cycle. Furthermore, Starr’s interviews with 881 students who wrote personal statements during that period show that a large majority of applicants from minority groups used the personal statement to talk about their racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity. While less than half of white applicants mentioned their race, between 67 and 70 percent of applicants of color did so in 2024. That number has remained steady for the past few years.

Here’s what these results mean in practice: Students from racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and linguistic minority groups write about how they have managed to overcome barriers in spite of social discrimination, wisely taking the opportunity to alert the university to their potential to “diversify” the student body.

From my own time working at a writing center, where my job was in part to help applicants prepare personal statements, I know that the students who do not belong to any minority groups find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Some will write about their “privileged” status, signaling to the gatekeepers that, even if they aren’t a minority, at least they are on the side of the “good guys” in the culture war. Other non-minority students talk about all the ways they have served as “allies” for minoritarian activist groups. And some non-minority applicants try to avoid the subject altogether: a fine way to remind the committee that you probably aren’t a minority and that you’re likely on the “wrong” side of the political divide.

In short, in 2025, the admissions essay has only one purpose: It’s the part of the application where you signify whether you might be due special consideration based on your struggles. How do we know that’s the case? A simple survey of the writing prompts for personal statements at various North Carolina universities underscores that the primary concerns are hardship, victimization, oppression, and identity.

UNC-Chapel Hill, for instance, seems to require applicants to write responses to two prompts on its website and one prompt found at commonapp.org (more on that in a moment). The first prompt on the Chapel Hill website reads as follows: “Discuss one of your personal qualities and share a story, anecdote, or memory of how it helped you make a positive impact on a community. This could be your current community or another community you have engaged.”

People unfamiliar with university politics might ask, “What’s wrong with that?” Admittedly, the prompt’s interest in identity politics is coded. But the invitation to discuss “a personal quality” clearly opens the door for announcing one’s membership in an “underserved group.” Further, the prompt then asks the student to talk about how that “personal quality” “helped you make a positive impact on a community.”

The invitation to discuss “a personal quality” clearly opens the door for announcing one’s membership in an “underserved group.” Notice that it doesn’t ask for a positive impact on the community (one’s town or society at large), but rather “a community.” This is a politicized usage of the word, as observed in phrases such as “the LGBTQ+ community,” “the black community,” or “the indigenous community.” In other words, the prompt implicitly conveys the university’s interest in political activism, presumably on behalf of “marginalized” communities. After all, does anyone believe that an applicant would be rewarded for writing about how their friendly demeanor made them a valued member of the canvassing team for the local GOP in the run-up to the 2024 election? Certainly, North Carolina Republicans are “a community.” But clearly, that’s not the kind of community to whom Chapel Hill is hoping applicants will deliver a “positive impact.”

Anyone who has lived through the insanity of the last 15 years understands that “access” and “equity” are bureaucratic code for institutional leftism. What about the prompt from commonapp.org? Common App is a “non-profit membership organization representing more than 1,100 diverse institutes of higher education.” Its stated aim is the “pursuit of access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process.” Anyone who has lived through the insanity of the last 15 years by now surely understands that “access” and “equity” are bureaucratic code for institutional leftism.

But how does Common App achieve integrity in the admissions process? Mainly, it seems, by providing a standard set of essay prompts used by schools across the country. Its website currently offers a list of seven prompts, some of which admittedly do not hint at ideological objectives. But the first two listed make those commitments quite clear. The first: “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” Forefronting background and identity are the tell here, but also important is that only “some students” will have an identity “so meaningful” that “their application would be incomplete without it.” The second prompt asks students to address “challenges” and “setbacks,” a topic that could generate a variety of responses but is clearly meant to allow for the boilerplate accounting of minority oppression.

UNC Wilmington offers applicants a fairly banal prompt but one that concludes by asking students to address any of their “distinguishing characteristics.” North Carolina State gives students the option of choosing a prompt from the aforementioned Common App or one from “Coalition App,” a similar outfit with a website that explains that its essay prompts “allow you to share experiences or perspectives that shape who you are—because your story and your identity matters.” Among Coalition App’s six prompts, we again find emphases on “challenges,” “obstacles,” “positive impact[s] on others,” et cetera.

As a new administration and a revitalized conservative movement pick up steam in restoring merit and excellence as the primary criteria for hiring and promotion, we find ourselves at a moment that presents unique potential for doing the same in college admissions.

There are many strategies for doing so. Eliminating DEI policies is helping. Ending so-called “diversity statements” for faculty positions has strengthened the prospects for merit-based hiring among the professoriate. But removing the personal essay from the application package would do the same for the student body. Universities strongly committed to merit-based admissions could even remove all demographic indicators from applications: names, addresses, previous schools, etc.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear that many schools want merit-based admissions policies. Harvard said as much the moment the Supreme Court’s ruling came down. This means that enacting reforms will be largely up to trustees and state coordinating boards. Should the Trump administration establish new accrediting bodies, those could also mandate and limit the components of student applications.

Universities would certainly miss the personal statement. But applicants probably wouldn’t. Anyway, in the age of ChatGPT and students’ increasing reliance on machines for writing tasks, it’s an open question how many of these “personal” essays are actually written by a person.

Adam Ellwanger is a full professor who studies rhetoric, writing, and politics at the University of Houston-Downtown.