It’s obvious and understandable that applicants want to present their best selves to admissions representatives. They want to highlight the most positive parts and diminish or avoid any negatives. Almost every college essay question has an implicit courtesy bias.

Students give a more polite opinion and disguise their true feelings so as not to offend. At least when you’re writing an AP Government paper for a teacher with strong political views, you know your audience and exactly how to flatter. College admissions adds a layer of complexity because your reader is almost always anonymous. I’ve only had one client ever admit in private that partying was what they were most excited for in college. That’s remarkable given many of us who attended universities spent much of our time doing exactly that, including me. I wager that there’s a non-zero possibility your alumni interviewer or admissions reviewer might be sipping a glass of wine or two while piling through their record number of applications.

The pandemic exposes the disconnect between what students write in their essays and the realities of young adults living away from home. It’s comical, if disheartening, even tragic, when universities nationwide haphazardly opened for in-person classes for Fall 2020. Many reversed their policies days or weeks after students arrived on campus, sending students home to Zoom U or live under lock and key in dorms. Rather than reflecting on their policies and rethinking the entire summer they had to prepare, many deluded administrators pointed fingers at college students.

Students are doing what they’ve done since at least Prohibition and the advent of the modern fraternity a century ago: party without adult interference or oversight. In Boston, Northeastern University made headlines in early September for expelling 11 students without a refund for violating social distancing and health protocols. Universities need butts in the seats and “student-athletes” on the field to sustain their business model. The admissions madness must continue uninterrupted.

Like the courtesy bias and illusory superiority, admissions expectations produce a social desirability bias. Students overreport their desirable behavior and underreport their undesirable characteristics.

A secondary consequence is the pressure students feel to link everything they’re writing into their major or connect their major into pro-social values such as service or philanthropy. These pressures produce a sea of Computer Science or Finance majors writing difficult-to-believe essays about how search engine optimization or credit default swaps will save the world. UT-Austin has recently required all applicants to discuss how they hope to “transform lives” and “change the world” after graduation. It’s an incredibly tone-deaf and out of touch essay question for a generation graduating in a pandemic who are trying to find any source of income that helps pay the bills.

Diversity-themed essays at universities like Kentucky or Texas A&M pressure students to adopt progressive politics that they may not agree with. I know of at least a few applicants who declined to apply to those campuses when confronted with politically-biased essay topics. Regardless, applicants unsympathetic to progressive identity politics will likely be persuaded to pander to what they know readers wants to hear—the courtesy bias.

Students must pander and write polite essays to pass an ideological purity test that often shields their true beliefs. Then Deans of Student Services wear their best Shocked Pikachu faces when a group of students party wearing blackface or host affirmative action bake sales next to the multicultural student center. I would love to read the essays of the ten students rescinded from Harvard’s Class of 2020 for sharing racist and sexist memes to see if any discussed the importance of tolerance and multiculturalism. In college essays, courtesy and social desirability complicate holistic review because reviewers will never have access to anything attempting to resemble a student’s “authentic” or true selves.