Want to get into a top college? Time to start spending more time on that essay

For many young professionals, the career journey begins as far back as the college application process. Where you attend college can have a profound impact on the career opportunities that will eventually come your way, so aiming for some of the top schools in the U.S. is a great way to ensure success down the road. In this edition of Forbes Edge, we’ll dive into how some of the essay questions for various schools are changing and why the college essay is becoming more important.?

Then, we’ve got a collection of other stories worth your time this week, including why JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believes a 3.5-day workweek might become a realit y (count me in).

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Featured story of the week: Want to get into a top college? Better crush the essay

Students across the country are feeling the stress of applying to colleges, especially with regards to the personal essay . Students are becoming increasingly focused on finding the right message for their essays, and some of the most desirable colleges in the U.S. are putting those essays under a microscope as well.

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in June, Chief Justice John Roberts left open one window through which colleges can still consider race in their admissions: if a student chooses to write about “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination inspiration, or otherwise.”

In response to the ruling, many of the country’s most selective colleges are putting more emphasis on the application essay this fall, says David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

In His Words: “Most of what we’re hearing comes from that highly selective group that they are going to lean more heavily on the essays, whether it’s redesigning the [essay] prompts or giving them added emphasis in the review process,” Hawkins says.

Among the nation’s top schools, the emphasis on essays is particularly pronounced. Eighty-four of the top 100 schools on Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges 2023 list see student essays to be “very important” or “important” to the admissions process.

More than 1,000 U.S. colleges use the Common Application, which allows students to submit one application to several schools at once. Part of the Common App is a 650-word essay responding to one of seven prompts.?

But that single essay is not enough for some highly selective colleges. While seven of Forbes’ top 10 colleges use the Common Application, six of those same schools also require students to submit additional short essays tailored to the institution. For example, No. 2-ranked Yale University, a Common App user, also asks applicants to submit short answers to eight questions, including “What is it about Yale that has led you to apply?” and “What inspires you?”?

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, some schools have even made subtle tweaks to their questions.

“We changed the application questions slightly this year to invite students to talk a little bit more about themselves in a more personal way,” says Adam Sapp, assistant vice president and director of admissions at Pomona College.

Students like Ethan Rivera, who is Latino, are left wrestling whether to write about their race in their admissions essay.

“It’s really interesting trying to balance having to put that into all of my writing—supplemental essays and personal essay—to make sure they recognize that part of me while also trying to talk about the other defining traits about me,” Rivera says.

Hawkins advises students to include whatever they want in their essay if it will help the admissions officers get to know them.?

Success Edge: “We encourage them to put anything and everything they think will be helpful in their essay, including their race or ethnicity. Let’s say a student comes from X race or ethnicity, and they were brought up in a community that had next to no money for schools, and the student had to overcome significant hardship because they grew up in that community. That’s the kind of holistic consideration that, as a college, they might be looking for—perseverance and ingenuity.”

Read the full story here from Forbes Staff Writer Emma Whitford for more details on college admissions essays, including how ChatGPT and AI come into play.

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Thank you for reading! We'll be back Thursday with another edition of Forbes Edge.?

This edition of Forbes Edge was written and curated by associate editor Chris Dobstaff .