MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the June issue of "Psychology Today":
Picking the right topic for college-application essays

Carlin Flora, a staff writer for the magazine, looks at the
college-application essay and attempts to determine whether some
topics lead to acceptance letters more often than others.

She reports that Marjorie A. Schiff, a senior assistant dean of
admissions at the University of Virginia, found that cloning,
stem-cell research, Jesus, the Bible, and God were popular essay
topics last year. But those themes were not necessarily good
predictors of success: Ms. Schiff learned that applicants who
focused on those topics garnered only an average proportion of
acceptance letters, about 35 percent, Ms. Flora writes.

However, one topic "did predict a greater-than-average chance of
success," she writes. Two-thirds of the students "who wrestled
with Vladimir Nabokov's work" were accepted, while "only 18
percent of those who wrote about J.D. Salinger got in," the
author reports.

That's no surprise since a "familiarity with Nabokov indicates a
deeper engagement with literature, whereas "The Catcher in the
Rye" graces nearly every high school's mandatory-reading list,"
Ms. Flora quotes Ms. Schiff as saying.

While admissions officers agree that, in most cases, the
execution is more important than the topic, applicants may want
to avoid writing about "The Da Vinci Code," Dan Brown's
best-selling mystery novel published last year.

"Several of the admissions staffers were mad," Ms. Schiff is
quoted as saying, "because they were reading the book and didn't
want the plot spoiled." That may explain why only 24 percent of
the novel's enthusiasts were admitted, Ms. Flora concludes.

The article, "Cracking the Admissions Code," is available online
at http://www.psychologytoday.com via keyword search.