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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Reading between the lines: application essays predict university success

Applicants whose essays had broader ‘semantic content’ tended to achieve higher marks.
A young woman sitting at a desk in her home, earnestly studying for an upcoming exam.

Analysis of more than 40,000 university application essays found that gradual transitions between chunks of text correlated with higher marks. Credit: Dusan Stankovic/Getty

Aspiring students who wrote content-rich university admission essays were more likely to end up with higher grades in their classes1.

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Nature 629, 731 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01396-8

References

  1. Berger, J. & Toubia, O. PNAS Nexus 3, pgae163 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

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