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

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.